RE: [DL] Quick note: Barnes & Nobles

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

 >I just hate seeing a bad idea made widespread simply due to economic might -

While I think we are in agreement in our loathing of the particulars of the 
DnD system, and we are probably in agreement that DnD d20 is a horrible 
combination of complexity and unrealism, I have to weigh in against this 
statement here.

DnD HAD to retain a strong semblance of similarity with the previous 
mechanics.  Otherwise they risk alienating their current fan base.  It had 
to be Dungeons and Dragons and it had to be close enough to existing 
material that the new and the old were compatible.

There really was only one truly valuable commodity that TSR brought to the 
table when WotC bought them out.  And that was the size of it's established 
fanbase.  It had a product with a large built in group of customers.  It 
was the only way that WotC could capitalize on the amount of money they 
spent on TSR and the larger amount of debt they assumed when that bought it.

And, in the bottom line, the only thing that really matters to a business 
is the. . . bottom line.  Because if you can't make a profit you can't put 
out product.  Without product, you've a dead game system, and probably a 
dead company to go with it.

So.  To capitalize on their one resource they had to at least keep the 
majority of their fanbase happy, and their fanbase was used to the ADnD 
system.

They could have just slapped the DnD logo on a complete new system, but 
that would have really torqued off the zealots- you know the ones - they've 
spent some much of their egos into believing that they are playing "the 
best" that even the merest suggestion that there is something better sends 
them into a defensive self-justifying panic.  (Plato's allegory of the Cave 
is the classic description of this syndrome - it's practically human 
nature.  Think of those people who still insist that crop circles are 
extraterrestrial in nature, even after the hoax has been long exposed.  As 
some guy named Galbraith said "Faced with the choice of changing one's mind 
or proving that there is no need to do so, most of us get busy on the proof")

But that's an Allan rant for another day.  Suffice it to say that I too 
game with a group of people who have tried a lot of systems, but the one 
time I tried to play Feng Shui with a group of players who had only played 
DnD, and have been playing it for ten+ years (ie - hardwired by now), it 
was. . . sad.

Ahem.

Given the constraints that the 3rd ed. design team had to deal with, I 
happen to think they did an incredible job of refreshing and revising the 
system, streamlining what they had to work with and dealing with the holes 
in the 2nd ed. system.  There are a lot of kludgy mechanics that get in the 
way of the flow of the game (over a year of D20 and we are still looking up 
rules weekly), and they still have the original sin of hit points, levels, 
AC, etc, but I look at the details of the mechanics and can tell that a lot 
of thought and feedback and effort and, for lack of a better term, heart 
was put into the core books.   And the D20 system deserves a lot of credit 
for that, and for mostly avoiding the "built by committee" feel that I've 
seen from a lot of other games that have been extensively designed.

And for the Open Gaming License.  Yes, while it does help WotC sell more 
books, it also allows people who are, for whatever reason, incapable of 
touching a non-DnD product, to actually be exposed to something new. . . 
and different. . . even.  A little cultural cross-pollination for gamer 
geeks as it were.

And ultimately, to paraphrase someone's quote about religion, arguing over 
whose RPG system is better is like arguing over who has the better 
invisible friend.  Every system has flaws, every system (almost) has good 
points.

But what's this long post REALLY about.  It's about me waiting for the 
caffeine in my system from the game tonight to drop low enough to allow me 
to get to sleep.  :-)

The game?  3rd ed. DnD.  It's a lot like Magic the Gathering.  There are a 
lot of better card games out there, but no matter where I go I can always 
find a MTG game.  It's like the difference between McDonalds and the 
awesome little hole in the wall ma and pa run restaurant.  Finding another 
restaurant like that is tough, but them golden arches is everywhere.








-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com

Power corrupts, but we need electricity.