I disagree that D&D needs a shot in the arm. Too many shots and it stops being D&D entirely. I think it’s worth asking instead, has D&D said everything it has to say? If so, then it’s time for D&D to end.

Now, I’m looking at this from the point of view of art. D&D is more of a product and the traditional approach is to ride a product into the ground indefinitely until it stops being profitable. See also: TV shows.

Most sci-fi shows are knockoffs of Star Trek, Star Wars couldn’t even successfully clone itself (even with ‘clone’ in one of the titles), and most sci-fi novels wish they were more like the Foundation series.

Thou spake,
“See also: TV shows.”
And movie franchises.
And video games.
And pretty much anything else.

That doesn’t even start on the knockoff/L-brand stuff. In the bookstore the other day, I saw row after row of vampire romance novels aimed at teenage girls. Though it annoyed me on several levels, it was nice that kids were reading. But that’s all a rant for another day…

I like how the post-D&D idea was subverted by The DM of the Rings. The core conceit is that somehow D&D was created, but the Lord of the Rings never was.

I don’t know that we’re going to see a Next Big Thing in gaming. At the rate things are going as an industry, we’ll be lucky to see Any Big Thing be created. I don’t necessarily see this as a bad thing (at least, not entirely), as the hobby goes back to its more indy/small press roots.

I am reminded that D&D is just now starting to go through the evolution that all ideas do. That is, things are changed not so much by making detractors (and grognards) accept the new ways, but by people who grew up with the new ways as things as they always were to them. New gamers (and designers) don’t see how video games took from (real) roleplaying, because they’ve never known a time when neither existed in their current forms.

The producers always wanted Lost to be finite. And they got their wish. Although the first couple of seasons rambled, they have now plotted it to conclusion and know when they have to hit that mark.

It’s interesting. I don’t disagree with what you’ve written here to any real extent, and yet I seem to feel differently about it.

I take the standard tropes of the D&D world as a chalenge to do something new with the old parts, to see how different I can make it and still have it be D&D. Of course, I’m coming off of years of doing other stuff, non-D&D fantasy among my dirty indie hippie gaming excursions. To an extent, it’s like coming back to a comforting place where I know where everything is.

… posts like this is one of the reasons I subscribe to your blog…

The next big thing? I think the comment above about the RPG industry going back to its indy/small press ‘roots’ is probably correct, albeit only becuase the customer base (not fanbase) has largely left the building and headed to the temple of MMORPGs. It seems that ‘the next big thing’ isn’t 4E. It doesn’t seem to be Pathfinder either. Both are more like ‘the next lukewarm thing’. More the same, so I guess what you’ve said in your post could likely be applied to most current RPGs, yeah? All of them are either trying too hard to BE the next big thing, or are so obviously “look i’m retro” that the end-result is the same: “Meh…”

The next big thing is probably going to be somekind of accident. Some creative people sitting around playing some game will come up with some new twist (trope…) and bang: the next big thing. Social games are coming back (so i’ve heard) as people realize that the living room is a better place to hang out with friends than Facebook or Ogrimmar. Thus, the real question is… how can be introduce these living room migrants to the art of roleplaying games? And in what context will be?

I’m thinking diceless games; probably use cards with slick GenZ graphics for rules mitigation; but still be a roleplaying game nonetheless. I dunno… maybe fantasy is dead and the new vogue in social roleplaying gaming is closer to second life than warcraft.

…sry for the ramble

jonathan’s last blog post..I HEART Gygaxian Naturalism – RPG Anthology Fundraiser

I’ve been saying this for a long time. Your argument is fundamentally the argument I’ve made that far too little creative material is produced regarding the D&D environment as compared to the machinery of classes, races, spells, etc. Your call is very fair. We are perpetually stuck in a fairy tale Wagnerian conceptionalization (or Spenserian, if you prefer), because we’re told that the game must hinge upon Romantic themes.

Hm. I need to write more about this.

Let’s not forget that D&D is short for Dungeons & Dragons. Divorced from the whole dungeon-crawl-fantasy trope it would entirely lose its product identity, and there are dozens of games out there that already do way better at the finer points of role-playing. D&D is never going to invent itself a new core concept and still claim to be D&D — especially not all in one go — the public wouldn’t accept it. And don’t expect any other tabletop RPG to ever match D&D’s “phenomenon” status for the same reason you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for a new recording artist to achieve the “phenomenon” status of Elvis or the Beatles. It’s not a question of quality; there are just too many options now for so much concensus to settle in one place again in that particular venue.

“Harry Potter” is one of the rare exceptions to the general principal. A “perfect storm” of social conditions allowed it to tap into a whole new generation of readers who didn’t already have their attention on other authors, because fantasy was just making the transition from foolish geek-stuff to mainstream entertainment. If another perfect storm comes along and an RPG happens to be positioned to capitalize on it, then and only then will we see “the next big thing” in RPGs on the scale that you’re talking about.