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

Redundant?

[shoptroll]

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

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.