Gaming Portal Announced By Wizards of the Coast

1up has coverage of a strange development: a gaming portal focused on tabletop and strategy games. The site is slated to be a editorial/community site focusing on Avalon Hill and Wizards products, as well as potentially offering a venue for independent PC games. "Wizards of the Coast is eager to stress that Gleemax is not about pimping their own products, so much as it is about strengthening the overall culture of gaming as a whole. It's a husbandry approach; by creating a fertile ground where the various tribes of gaming can meet and greet, they hope to build interest (and presumably sales) through the basic principle of cultivating a strong player community." The whole thing is something of an odd move for the company, and for some insight into the launch Greg Kostikiyan at the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog clarifies the reality of Gleemax as an indie game publisher. You'd think he would look at the site as competition for his own Manifesto Games, but he seems fairly philosophical about it.

Comments

The slogan:

[Rob T Firefly]

Gleemax makes you feel like it's 72 degrees in your head... all the time!

Re:The slogan:

[Praedon]

This whole Gleemax thing is a blatant rip-off of Geekalize.com. I am the president of Geekalize, and had a contract with them to advertise Regionals of Magic the Gathering. When they continued to press this whole Gleemax thing, they canceled the advertising contract, and made the announcement. When I had conference calls with them, I was sharing ideas of what I wanted to do with Geekalize, including the spots on profiles where they can share stories of their gaming experience and such. Obviously I won't go into detail, but rest assured this is going to make quite a stir from them violating confidential comments that I had shared with them to get them to advertise with Geekalize in the first place.

I assume this will be marked as trolling or flaming but wait till I document everything that had happened between Geekalize and Wizards of the Coast, and I will challenge them to review all of it and try to prove they did not spy and steal my future plans for Geekalize. That is the problem, you can't trust anyone in the industry if you are the underdog. Lesson learned.

Re:The slogan:

[devnull17]

Or it was just an obvious idea that someone else thought was good as well.

Re:The slogan:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, a social networking and gaming portal is such a unique and non-obvious idea that you clearly are the only human being to ever have thought of and implemented one.

Re:The slogan:

[mchale]

If you really believe you can document everything and that they've violated confidentiality, you should probably get a lawyer, and almost definitely not post details on public forums like Slashdot. I think even posting as much as you have would give your hypothetical lawyer heartburn.

That said, IANAL, nor do I play one on TV.

Re:The slogan:

[CmdrSam]

They've been working up to this for at least 6 months, if not more. I remember taking a survey on their web site back then about whether I would use a service such as this one.

Re:The slogan:

[Anonymous Coward]

There was an elf that did it in the past, the human beings are just using their artifacts!

Re:The slogan:

[MaWeiTao]

This whole Gleemax thing is a blatant rip-off of Geekalize.com

Your claim is entirely possible. However, having browsed through Geekalize.com briefly I didn't really see anything I haven't seen on dozens of other sites already. It's entirely possible Wizards of the Coast had already been thinking of such a site; again, these kinds of sites are fairly common. They may have considered promoting themselves via existing sites, like Geekalize.com, perhaps even establishing a partnership. Ultimately, they concluded they'd be better off having their own site where they could exercise complete control over content. From your perspective, unfortunately, it seems like they ripped off your ideas.

Of course, this is why people shouldn't disclose too much and why they should be protected legally. I presume you're discussing the matter with lawyers. Bringing up the matter on sites like Slashdot may not be the best idea.

Re:The slogan:

[Praedon]

For the most part you are correct, it is just sad how the world turns, when you are sharing a lot of information to a potential advertiser, and trying to earn a living, then 7 months after the first initial call sharing my demographics, along with my goals and some secret weapons (Orbiting Laser satellites not included), Gleemax makes a wonderful approach gloating all these fruitful services. And yes, to those who say "Oh wow, real original, etc etc." there are TONS of social networking sites out there, and I never claimed otherwise that I have all original work and such, but I am simply stating that this is either a VERY HUGE coincidence or that my calls for support ended up being a gateway to their own possibilities to explore.

Never the less, being the underdog in a sea of towering internals like PedoSpace and Fakester is just really annoying, so I thought I would share an interesting story that would more than likely do two things... spark an interesting conversation or hang me. I will be perfectly honest, when I say I really don't have any intentions on taking a big corporation into a courtroom. I have read too many stories on slashdot to do that. I may have a mouth on me, but I certainly am not dumb enough to take on the big dogs.

That is my two cents on this whole thing, take it as you will : )

Re:The slogan:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, or you could have just gotten it done. Believe it or not, you're not the only person who sees the next logical step past last year's gaming. Having an idea just isn't enough.

Re:The slogan:

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad news bro. They don't have to prove shit. YOU have to prove they stole your ideas.

Redundant?

[shoptroll]

But http://www.boardgamegeek.com/ already exists!

Re:Redundant?

[H3lldr0p]

No redundant, just not under their control.

Re:Redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would mean... more than one choice? We can't let that horror happen!

Re:Redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

True, between BGG and VASL what more do board/war-game fans need?

Boardgames are not like videogames. There is no need for thousands of sites about the same thing. Boardgames may be on the upswing for popularity, what with the Speil de Jahres and the like, but boardgame fans seem to like a single large population than many smaller ones. Sure there are offshoot groups (ASL fansites, Heroscapers.net, etc.) but overall the centeralized large group makes it a helluva lot easier to find othe players. Even if you cant play them in person, well thats what VASL is for.

Re:Redundant?

[Kinwolf]

Err, so strange to see this comment on a website mostly visited by Linux distros advocates...

Brain

[ShakaUVM]

Hmm, this explains why WOTC mailed me a brain in the mail the other day.

A lot of people in the RPGA have been puzzling over it... basically, it's a stress ball with gleemax@wizards.com written on it, backwards.

Makes a lot more sense now...

OK

[east coast]

Does this mean that they're going to being Twilight 2000 back?

In all seriousness, and not to appear as a troll:

For me the whole pen and paper thing is dying fast. I still play about week or so but more and more I'm starting to dread it. It's just so much easier for me to log into EQ2 and not have to quibble over rules and the like. Not having to own, carry or read 75 Wizard's books alone makes up for what I lose in the roleplaying aspect.

I just wonder how many others have pretty much given up on pen and paper at this point. Who knows, I might feel differently about it next week.

Re:OK

[ExPacis]

You could always just tell your players they can only use material from the core books, or core books + X others, to cut down on the amount of stuff you have to carry around. OR. eBooks. If you don't mind having a laptop at the table (or a desktop, YMMV), they work just as well. Just a few thoughts to keeping people with PnP.

Re:OK

[cavtroop]

Does this mean that they're going to being Twilight 2000 back?

Why yes, yes it does (not WotC, but 93 Games Studio is):

Twilight 2003 forums

And to touch upon your point of PnP games dying - my GM and I have this discussion all the time. I don't think it's dying at all, but MMORPGs are definitely hurting the PnP industry. Both in terms of less players, and much less QUALITY players. We've tried to recruit several new people to our group over the last few years. Our core group is all mid to late 30-somethings, and most players we find to recruit are mid 20-somethings. Almost every one of them wants to treat PnP as they do an MMORPG - moving as quickly as they can from one encounter to the next, vying for more XP and loot, min/maxing characters. Almost ZERO roleplaying. I blame this trend on MMORPGs and their game mechanics. We've ejected all those players, and now have a decent core group, that likes the PnP experience (as much a game as a social night out with friends).

Re:OK

[cavtroop]

Amen to this. For a while, our group let us use pretty much any splatbook you wanted. Now, we restrict mostly to the core books, and one or two chosen splatbooks.

Most of the splatbooks are poorly written, unbalanced pieces of drivel. If you allow them in your game, the new rules/feats/etc. in the books are either way better, or way worse, than that in the core books, and you can get some seriously unbalanced characters.

Our group is going to end its current campaign sometime over the next year, after which we'll reset and start another one. We're already talking about limiting the source material and splatbooks allowed. That way, you don't carry a library around with you, the ruleset is simpler and easier, and we believe it will lead to more fun.

Remember, PnP is what you make of it - that is what makes it so great. Unlike an MMORPG, where you are completely restrained by rules and mechanics - in a PnP game, if you don't like something, or if some mechanic is not fun, then simply change it! *That's* the true allure of tabletop PnP, along with the actual social interaction.

Re:OK

[Aladrin]

This true about a lot of things, and not just Pen & Paper RPGs. Consoles and PC Games have provided another avenue to get certain entertainment needs rather than the 'real thing'. RPGs, Wii Bowling, Strategy Games (replacing board games), the plethora of 'puzzle' games on Reflexive and Gamehouse... People used to have to go through a lot more hassle to sooth those urges.

Now they can have a quick game with only a few minutes setup, instead of having to get people together and agree on a game, etc, etc.

It's just progress. People used to have to listen to the radio for news and entertainment, but then TV came along. And now video games. Something will likely replace them as well, in the future. I personally suspect it'll be a movement towards VR and integrating reality with the VR. A pair of sunglasses that let me play video games with my hand motions would be awesome, and incorporating real-world stuff into it also would be awesome.

What about SecondLife-in-real-life, where you could build a 3d sculpture in the subway, and others that are hooked in could see it as well. Or design your plain red t-shirt to have an animated design.

I'd pay good money for that, and that kind of tech is -not- that far off.

Even more on-topic... With those glasses, your Pen & Paper RP sessions would take on new life as Eric really did look like 'Eldarar the hedgewizard' and Susie really -is- a troll, and casting a spell at her looked a bit dangerous. You keep all your rules and acting, and the details and special effects could be handled by the system.

I better stop. I want that really bad now, and it'll be years before we see it. -sigh-

Re:OK

[Rob T Firefly]

That reminds me of the time in 1983 that someone told me pen-and-paper was dead while playing a D&D cartridge on a Mattel Aquarius. Or the late 1980s when MUDs and BBS games got popular. Or that time in 1993 when a bunch of us were playing Ultima 7 for DOS with the speech pack, and someone said it beat pen-and-paper. Or five years later when Ultima went online for the first time, ready to kill off tabletop gaming forever. Or that time in 1998 when Baldur's Gate came out and people declared it the death of tabletop. Or 2001 with the surge of interest in LARP signaled the death of tabletop. Or 2004 with the advent of WoW and how it was poised to kill off tabletop. Etc..

Re:OK

[trollymctrollmister]

Both in terms of less players, and much less QUALITY players.

I dunno about that. I've been GMing for 30 years and there are just as many min/maxers, loot chasers, and "roll-players" now as there ever was. That said, I tend to observe these traits more in younger gamers, where older gamers are more interested in story, character development, exploring the wonders of world, etc. In my experience, quality gamers do exist in the younger crowd; they are just less frequent. Also, keep in mind that your tastes have likely changed over the years too. I certainly know that the campaigns I was running 20 years ago were no where near as well developed as what I run now.

Re:OK

[Mongoose Disciple]

It depends on what you want to get out of the game.

If playing D&D is mostly about killing monsters, getting loot, and gaining levels, something like EQ is probably a pretty good substitute.

I've played in games that were like that and had a good time doing it, but that's not so much what sitting down for a game is about for me anymore.

It's part strategy game, part story/RP, part a game of plotting and intrigue. You're never going to see the kind of intra-party plotting and conflict in a MMORPG that is pretty much standard in the last few tabletop games I've played.

More than anything, it's an excuse to get a bunch of friends I don't see enough anymore in one place for a night or a day and hang out and do something together. Sure, I'll play online games with those people, too, but it's not really the same.

I don't get to play anywhere near as much as I did ten years ago, and I probably wouldn't want to, but the occasional game fills a niche for me that not much else will.

Re:OK

[Ruprecht the Monkeyb]

Two different beasts. If you can substitute EQ2 for a PnP game and not miss the latter, then you weren't doing it right. MMOs (and I've played em all) are a nice diversion, but the face-to-face socializing and wide-open gameplay of a good D&D game kick the snot out of killing the same mob for the 1000th time hoping for a good drop, or sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for the other 30 people in the raid to get thier shit together. And you can play a perfectly fun game of D&D without buying any books at all. If you think you need every splatbook WotC publishes, you're a sucker.

Re:OK

[Anonymous Coward]

Snake: Uh, wallet inspector!
Benjamin: Oh, here you go. I believe that's all in order.
Snake: Wow, I can't believe that worked! (runs away)
Homer: Hey wait a minute... that's not the wallet inspector!

Re:OK

[east coast]

Two different beasts. If you can substitute EQ2 for a PnP game and not miss the latter, then you weren't doing it right.

Oh, you mean I wasn't doing it your way? Not to get on you or anything but I always thought that there was more than one way to enjoy D&D. If I'm wrong just tell me.

the face-to-face socializing and wide-open gameplay of a good D&D game kick the snot out of killing the same mob for the 1000th time hoping for a good drop, or sitting around for 45 minutes waiting for the other 30 people in the raid to get their shit together.

And the "load and go" gameplay of MMO games kicks the snot out of trying to work around everyones private life in the hopes that an entire group can show up, especially at my age where many of my peers have new wives/husbands and young children to consider in the mix. Grinding can be a bore, no doubt, but how much different is it on the excitement scale then making 12 phone calls 3 days before a session, getting everyone together just to realize that you only got nearly everyone together. So you call up the absent player(s) again only to find out that work or family has thrown up a last minute obligation and they'll either be late or not showing at all. All of this leaves not only a timegap that you need to fill with random garbage (not much different than getting a raid together, eh?) but also the problems it causes for the GM. Maybe your group is more stable but in my group we have a lot going on in our private lives and it's not as easy as saying "everyone be here at 7pm ready to play."

Worst case scenario with EQ2 (or whatever MMO): I log on, no one else is around, I have no solo material to work on (yeah, right). So I log off and play CounterStrike instead. Maybe that's part of it too, I feel that playing is becoming tiresome because I'm seeing it more and more as an obligation to not let others down because I have to show up or it's going to cause the party problems. I simply don't want to make those kinds of commitments to D&D anymore when I have, what I feel is, a substitute. I probably wouldn't feel the same if I didn't have EQ2.

The thing that will probably make you cringe over all of this is that if I had to choose I would drop P&P RPGs in a second.

And you can play a perfectly fun game of D&D without buying any books at all. If you think you need every splatbook WotC publishes, you're a sucker.

I actually don't buy these books but all it takes is a lukewarm GM and a player who wants to use The Complete Potato Farmer v. 3.5.1223.2a to start to throw a group for a tailspin. I'm not the GM here. If the GM allows whatever book to be used it makes it all the harder for those of us without. I actually haven't upgraded since I got PHG, DMG and MM for 3.0 and I feel somewhat isolated by how the balance of the game is thrown off by the supplemental materials that WotC is selling for 20+ USD a pop. I see my kick ass spells as a 3.0 cleric being turned trivial in the face of prestige classes who have better spells four levels earlier than myself.

Somewhere else in this thread I adress this in a roundabout manner by saying that WotC is treating D&D like a "cheap whore ala Magic". It's somewhat amusing for me to look back and remember how I felt about Magic after hearing about players pouring money into their decks only to have some cards be made invalid for play in certain situations and among certain other players who wanted to stick with the official edicts of Wizards.

Unfortunately part of what amused me at the time has turned into my own little problem when Wizards took over TSR. Not that TSR wasn't heading down that road themselves.

Re:OK

[ChaosDiscord]

It doesn't sound like you're sick of tabletop gaming, it just sounds like you need a change. You've gotten into a rut of a single game (D&D from the sound of it) and simply accepting each additional book as an addition without further consideration. Break free and experiment!

If you're tired of all the books, don't use them. I just finished playing in a D&D campaign that was almost exclusively run from the core three books (PHB, DMG, MM) and had a blast. Or try out games that are inherently less rules heavy. Amber Diceless, Big Eyes, Small Mouth, Fudge, and Call of Cthulhu leap to mind. Or take a break and run some shorter games. Games like My Life with Master, The Mountain Witch, and Dread are designed for relatively short lived games. As an added bonus, all three are relatively rules light; there simply isn't enough rules to argue over. Or check out something longer term, but just really different like Dogs in the Vineyard, Prime Time Adventures, or Spirit of the Century. You can even explore interesting new things and stay mainstream. Too much D&D? Maybe it's time to play a little Vampire: the Requim, or enjoy a little cowboy horror action with the Savage Worlds edition of Deadlands, or a bit of dystopian fantasy cyberpunk with Shadowrun. Especially if your group is new to the system there is far less incentive to use more than the core book and it's a lot easier to have a "only the core book or books" rule. Or for something more familiar, but without the pile of books behind it, check out the newest d20-based Star Wars edition.

Re:OK

[cthellis]

Funny. That was rather my experience well before MMORPG's came along. It's a matter of mentality and maturity and imagination, and by and large "people don' got it."

Certainly the WoW'ing of gamerdom isn't going to help, but it's least brought more attention to similar gaming IRL. Searching for diamonds--even ones in the rough--will pretty much be as difficult as always.

Re:OK

[mcvos]

Not having to own, carry or read 75 Wizard's books alone makes up for what I lose in the roleplaying aspect.

Not to me. It's all about the roleplaying aspect to me, and since we play at the house of the guy who owns the books, nobody has to carry anything other than their own dice bag. (Although I'm actually one of the few people in the group who doesn't own the basic rule book of Earthdawn (the game we're currently playing), but even carrying a single book isn't so bad if you ask me.)

Re:OK

[mcvos]

And the "load and go" gameplay of MMO games kicks the snot out of trying to work around everyones private life in the hopes that an entire group can show up, especially at my age where many of my peers have new wives/husbands and young children to consider in the mix. Grinding can be a bore, no doubt, but how much different is it on the excitement scale then making 12 phone calls 3 days before a session, getting everyone together just to realize that you only got nearly everyone together. So you call up the absent player(s) again only to find out that work or family has thrown up a last minute obligation and they'll either be late or not showing at all. All of this leaves not only a timegap that you need to fill with random garbage (not much different than getting a raid together, eh?) but also the problems it causes for the GM. Maybe your group is more stable but in my group we have a lot going on in our private lives and it's not as easy as saying "everyone be here at 7pm ready to play."

We used to have a lot of trouble getting everybody together too, so a couple of years ago we decided that we play every second sunday of the month. Every second sunday. And unless your mother died or you are violently ill, you show up.

Ofcourse it doesn't always work. There are two players who still keep making other plans for those days, so 30-50% of our games there's someone missing, and we play on without him. Last time two players were missing, even. It was the big finish of something we'd been working towards for quite some time, and we ended up fighting 10 fire elementals with just the 4 of us instead of the 6 we were supposed to have. But we won, and our victory is that much bigger because of it. Ofcourse it's sad that two players had to miss it, but that's their choice, and we're not going to let that stop us.

I actually don't buy these books but all it takes is a lukewarm GM and a player who wants to use The Complete Potato Farmer v. 3.5.1223.2a to start to throw a group for a tailspin. I'm not the GM here. If the GM allows whatever book to be used it makes it all the harder for those of us without. I actually haven't upgraded since I got PHG, DMG and MM for 3.0 and I feel somewhat isolated by how the balance of the game is thrown off by the supplemental materials that WotC is selling for 20+ USD a pop. I see my kick ass spells as a 3.0 cleric being turned trivial in the face of prestige classes who have better spells four levels earlier than myself.

This is simply a matter of agreeing in advance what kind of game you're gonna play. Inside the game, the GM is the final arbiter, but outside, the players have just as much say in what kind of game they want to play. If the players want SF, the GM is not going to do fantasy, if they players don't want a splatbook freakshow, the GM shouldn't allow that.

And if he does include stuff, all players should have access to the same information about all the options. You don't need to own every book. Just borrow the book from the guy who wants to include it in the game. Ofcourse it's also possible that your group simply sucks, in which case you'd better get a better group.

It's true that D&D has a ridiculous amount of junk books for people with more money than sense. If you play D&D, I think it's better to either stick to the basics, or get together and make a really thorough selection of the kind of additional junk you'll allow in the game. Other games aren't immune to this either; Earthdawn has a few books that provide new rules that are just a bit too powerful compared to the basic books. Personally I prefer a system that provides all the rules in the basic books, and uses the additional books for background info or for examples of all the weird stuff you can do with the basic rules. GURPS is a bit like that: in the Fourth Edition, they try to keep rules in a handful of core books: Basic Set, and presumably the upcoming Martial

Re:OK

[Yosho]

Most of the splatbooks are poorly written, unbalanced pieces of drivel.

I would actually disagree with the "unbalanced" part. Sure, there are some that have some things in them that are just plain broken, but I'd say that most of the new material is more balanced than the core books.

Just look at the base classes -- fighter is, bar none, the weakest class. Ok, they're decent for the first few levels when all of the melee classes basically use the same tactics, but after that, there is absolutely nothing they can do that another class can't do better. I have yet to see any new base classes that can do less than the fighter. I've seen a lot of people look at newer material and go, "It's more powerful than a fighter, it's broken!", but really, the fighter is a bad benchmark.

On the other hand, the four base full caster classes (cleric/druid/sorcerer/wizard) are easily more versatile and powerful than any of the others. A druid with the Natural Spell feat can break the game in ways that newer caster classes can only dream of, and they don't have to use anything that's not in the PHB and MM. I'll make an exception for a bard who focuses on diplomacy, though, because he can easily make the most hateful demons into his best friends with a single skill check.

Granted, there are occasional prestige classes that are more powerful than the base classes. However, first of all, in some cases that's just unavoidable -- look at the sorcerer, who basically gets *nothing* but spellcasting. Any prestige class that gave him a full caster progression plus anything else would have to be better than the sorcerer, simply because the base class gets nothing. Second, well, the point of prestige classes is really to make a character more powerful (or at least, more focused in certain areas) than they would be otherwise.

The balance for a lot of new material is quite good, in my opinion. The Tome of Battle is exactly what melee combatants needed; the base classes there are capable of keeping pace with the spellcasters, even at later levels. There are some that look broken at first glance, but are really pretty good. Psionics look bad at first glance, but after you actually understand the rules, it's arguably the most balanced system in the game. Seriously, if you don't believe me, go spend some time on WotC's forums, they'll clear up any misconceptions you have about it. Also, I know one DM who practically had a seizure when he saw the PHB2's duskblade, but we've actually been using it in a campaign, and as hard as we try to break it, it still can't touch a druid who has had the same amount of effort put into him. The Tome of Magic has been a hit, too; binders are wonderfully complex but not game-breaking, and they're arguably a little weak at low levels. The shadowcaster's fun, too, although they level a bit unevenly. Truenamers look too weak at first, but if you work on optimizing their skills properly, they're as good as any other non-broken spellcaster.

Next time I run a new campaign, I'm actually thinking about banning PHB classes (except maybe the rogue, whom I personally think is the best example of balance in the PHB). It's too early to tell for sure, but I'm actually willing to bet that the party will end up being more balanced. We won't have to deal with the monk who is frustrated because he never manages to hit anything or the paladin who is frustrated because the wizard kills everything before he can actually move up to it.

Anyway, that's just how I feel about it. I won't disagree that the writing is poor in many cases, though. They really need to polish up their flavor text and get some better editors.

The Internet is all about redundancy...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

The Internet is all about redundancy...starting with its TCP/IP roots. Think about it in terms of companies. If Yahoo or Google or MSN died today, would anyone really care? Probably not, because one of the "redundant" web sites (i.e., close competitors) out there would take its place. (e.g., remember Altavista?)

Re:The Internet is all about redundancy...

[SQLGuru]

Altavista, Lycos, WebCrawler.

Yep, used them all. At various times, I liked each one of those "best". Right now, I pretty much use Yahoo and MSN as a portal, nothing more, and Google as my search engine (and mail). Homepage is of course the about link.....nothing like near instantaneous retrieval of your homepage.

Layne

They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[ajs]

I never thought Wizards of the Coast would fall this far, but they actually killed the two most widely read and respected D&D publications for... THIS? Ugh.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[Reason58]

MMO killed the PnP star.
MMO killed the PnP star.

In my mind and in my parent's basement,
We can't hit res we've gone too far.
Net tubes came and broke your heart,
So put all the blame on Al Goooooore.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[ajs]

You know that this is about tabletop roleplaying, right?

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[Reason58]

Ahem.

You were complaining about the death of a PEN AND PAPER franchise, Dungeons and Dragons. I'm telling you WotC didn't kill D&D, computers and the explosive growth of MMORPGs did. WotC just happened to be the ones left holding the reins when that horse fell over dead.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[ajs]

You were complaining about the death of a PEN AND PAPER franchise, Dungeons and Dragons. Nope. I was complaining about the fact that Wizards killed Dragon and Dungeon magazines in favor of this horrible abomination of a portal, both being oriented toward pen and paper, tabletop roleplaying.

I'm telling you WotC didn't kill D&D, computers and the explosive growth of MMORPGs did. Not at all. D&D is still a popular game. I play both MMORPGs and tabletop games, D&D among them. Many others do as well. MMORPGs come and go, but D&D is what you come home to.

WotC just happened to be the ones left holding the reins when that horse fell over dead. Wizards continues to see substantial revenue from D&D as a pen-and-paper game AND as an MMORPG. I don't see any dead horses, here. I do see a stupid web site that appears to have been designed by someone's teenage little bother, though.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[techpawn]

I wouldn't say killing as so much left it festering in the grave for a while longer.

As much as I hate social websites this could be handy to people like me who have just relocated and are looking for a new group to join.
BTW: Anyone need a level 20 mage?

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[east coast]

MMORPGs come and go, but D&D is what you come home to

I dunno, I think I will take the wait and see attitude on this one.

For me MMORPGs and CRPGs in general have brought me near the end of my P&P days. While TSR certainly isn't blameless, the fact that WotC is putting out so much material at such a fast rate and makes it all so intertwined outside of the core rules really bothers me. Wizards is treating our blessed love child like a cheap whore ala Magic CCG.

This coupled with a waning interest in P&P by the public in general has created a shrinking pool of players. While this may be a good thing at the same time it sucks when part of the exiting stream of players includes people from your own group. What's left of us are all early 30-somethings to the mid 40s. I think most of what's left of us are more resigned to throwing in the towel if we lose more over finding fresh blood. If we lose one or two more players that means that we're going to lose about four more by default. That's not boding well for a fence sitter like me.

So as far as going "home" to D&D? For me it's a house that's on a shaky foundation and doesn't have much time left. Overall I really can't blame people. Like I said; while TSR isn't blameless here I see WotC as digging it's own hole by forcing tons of material on players or leaving them with only the core rules. It's just a bit too much or a bit too little for a moderate player of my nature to stomach.

Otherwise, I haven't seen the site myself but given that you've clued me into the death of D and D (not to be confused with D&D) I must admit I think things are even going further south. I'll have to take a look.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[sckeener]

I'm thinking they already have the business case for how long it will take the target market to switch to the online format. I assume that we'll be hearing a lot more about Gleemax....most likely in the form of free official content as a sampler.

plus I bet there will be content that you can subscribe to for $. All it takes is one player in the group constantly bugging the DM to include the content and groups will convert.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[cthellis]

I hate to point it out to you, but the only reason Magic can be as revitalized as it is is DUE to the "cheap whore"-dom qualities you seem to assign it. I take issue with other points of profiteering I see (mainly in card design, as they can most CERTAINLY tell what combos will arise when they release new sets, and surprise-surprise! 90% rares!), but not the rapidity at which they are designing in general.

It makes it an expensive hobby to keep up, but not a STAGNANT one, which is by and large worse. There's nothing preventing you from playing exactly the way you used to with exactly the same cards you have with your friends, but if you want a competitive tournament environment and a live culture in a game specifically marketed as being ever-changing, you have to maintain a good pace and lots of variety. The designers have actually done a hell of a lot better job in maintaining that than I thought they would.

It is tiring to keep up with, though. I played from the beginning and burned out around Urza's Saga/Legacy (damn you, Tolarian Academy! Oh, and Sligh decks. *grumble* ), but up until that point was willing to keep up the investing and trading to stay on top of things. The "whoring" wasn't nearly as important as the gameplay changes, and unlike in a local PnP game, if you're mainly invested in the local tournament crowd, you can't tweak it.

And come to think of it, I had a TON of fun with the restrictive environment when the Magic Online beta started up--primarily because of the metric ton of cards I could accumulate for free during it. When "the Magic died" on that front, it was not worth it cost-wise for me to hop on the new medium, so I let it fall to the wayside as well. That's not precisely "whoring," though, but simply a cost of re-entry I'm no longer willing to front. (Same reason I never advanced past Step 1 in Games Workshop tabletops. I still get a hankering to play Necromunda, tho. ;-) ) Same reason I don't invest in many games.

I would IMMEDIATELY subscribe to a Magic Online service that was not trying to sell-through in the same way, though. If they had just a straight subscription fee, "free" ability to collect (similar to how you accumulated cards in the Beta, for instance), no physical set cash-ins, and a no-holds-barred approach to what games and sets and styles you could play... I'd be back to giving them as much profit as I used to. ;-)

Regardless, I can both appreciate what they DO have to do and lament what they HAVE done at the same time, and without invective. Also, also--D&D was very the same kind of cheap whore back in the TSR days. Gamers want MORE. It's up to you to decide how much you need.

Re:They killed Dragon and Dungeon for THIS?!

[westyx]

Well, this member of a D&D group won't be bugging his DM to get this stuff, and I don't think anyone else in our group will convert either. The DM was hooked on Dragon/Dungeon, and they're not going to make up those sales online.

It remains to be seen wether they'll make enough money doing it this way; i doubt it.

do not fight it...

[Anonymous Coward]

or else WoTC will smite you with a +4 Frost Mace of Shrinkage!

Strange?

[DragonWriter]

1up has coverage of a strange development: a gaming portal focused on tabletop and strategy games. The site is slated to be a editorial/community site focusing on Avalon Hill and Wizards products, as well as potentially offering a venue for independent PC games.

Why is it a "strange development" that a manufacturer of various entertainment products would open up a portal devoted to that type of products, and particularly its own products (Avalon Hill is a division of Wizards)?

You're not alone.

[Bieeanda]

I have, pretty much. I don't have the income to fritter away on new sourcebooks of dubious value, or the latest point-release-cum-edition of entire rulesets anymore. It doesn't help that my tabletop group has pretty much collapsed, and our traditional GM has become obsessed enough with City of Heroes to two-box it. Not that I can point fingers-- I've got active CoH and WoW accounts (though only one of each), and I do most of my RPing in text format on MUX.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't like to mix math with fun. It just doesn't do it for me-- even the most basic to-hit rolls or character point allocations are more of an annoyance than anything else, these days, so I'm not keen on new books filled with new rules. On the other hand, I don't have very much use for tomes of theorycraft, either-- I can come up with setting, characters or my own rules variants without paying $50 for a particularly geeky ...For Dummies book.

BGG makes a corporate vanity site redundant?

[dtolman]

C'mon - BGG is missing all the offerings of this exciting new website: a chance to browse only a fraction of games available to the general public, online play of inferior boardgames, and corporate censorship. But on the plus side, maybe Monopoly will finally get its fair shake on this site!

There are alternatives to D&D out there.

[Valdrax]

Not having to own, carry or read 75 Wizard's books alone makes up for what I lose in the roleplaying aspect.

I would like to point out that there is a vast variety of perfectly fun games out there that have only one book or at the very least aren't part of a supplement factory product line like those that come out of WotC and White Wolf.

I recommend checking out indie-rpgs.com for good discussion on what makes gaming fun. The forums there are heavily biased towards the semi-academic theory of how to design games, but the articles section there will make you think about what games are.

Start with System Does Matter in which Ron Edwards muses a bit over the three major different play goals of gamers and some very broad differences between systems. If some of this makes sense, move on to the much larger and more academic GNS and Other Matters of Role-playing Theory.

A brief excerpt from the second:

My straightforward observation of the activity of role-playing is that many participants do not enjoy it very much. Most role-players I encounter are tired, bitter, and frustrated. My goal in this writing is to provide vocabulary and perspective that enable people to articulate what they want and like out of the activity, and to understand what to look for both in other people and in game design to achieve their goals. The person who is entirely satisfied with his or her role-playing experiences is not my target audience.

If this sounds like you, then maybe the problem isn't that you're tired of gaming and that gaming sucks -- it's that you're not playing kind of games that reward what you want out of gaming. It sounds to me like you're getting burned out because you're not getting what you want out of a game, and you're just still doing it to hang out with friends who might not have much to talk about otherwise. I've been there. Read these essays, think about what it is that you like, and then poke around the Forge for info on good games that fit your style of play. You'll probably be surprised by the sheer variety that's out there beyond the stuff churned out by WotC. Far too many people check-out of gaming because they aren't aware that there's other stuff out there or because they're unwilling to try it.

Try some new games. Maybe your friends will enjoy a one-shot or two as variety.

Worst case scenario, find a new play group. Gaming is a lot like a relationship in that many people will claim that it's better to have bad gaming than none at all, but that's not true in the slightest. Like any social activity, if you're not getting what you really want out of it, it becomes an energy-draining obligation. Even so, there's no reason to give up on it entirely if better gaming is out there. Plus, just because you aren't spending every weekend with your friends doesn't mean that you won't see them ever again.

Seen this before . . ..

[Spobody Necial]

I know those new to the community won't recognize the description, espeically not with all the on-line trappings that are attached and blocking your view, but . . ..

Wizards of the Coast is DECLARING that Gleemax is going to be ONLINE exactly what the RPGA TRIED to be in FtF gaming. The RPGA, for thos etoo young to remmeber, was started by a little company known as Tactical Studies Rules (or TSR) right about the switch into the 1980's. It was part of what WotC got when they purchased TSR.

It is worth note that it did not take WotC long to pare the RPGA back so that it no longer supported anything but internal products. Many moonms ago, the RPGA used to actually promote all the games that the membership (and other manufacturers) asked it to. Now it doesn't even support manufacturers who REQUIRE WotC products be purchased in order to use their own material.

I'm too callused to expect this to go any differently.

Former RPGA Triad Member
Former WotC Delegate

Re:Seen this before . . ..

[cthellis]

Not precisely a big deal, IMHO. Every time I tried dipping my toes into the RPGA at cons or local sessions, I found it chock-a-block with idiots.