Why?

What has changed about the hobby’s gameplay that has rendered this once vital piece of equipment redundant?

I suspect it something to do the fall in the number traps. Once, these were a major hazard in every adventure and the 10′ pole was a useful piece of equipment for locating or disarming them. Possibly a great sense of realism in the game has also played a part. The idea of a warrior doing battle with a 10′ pole strapped to their back seems somehow ridiculous nowadays.

It is no exaggeration to say that D&D taught me many of the skills I use everyday.

Back in the early eighties, I was spotty, awkward teenager and had already discovered Tunnels & Trolls and Traveller. Attempts to play these games with my brothers had failed miserably and none of my friends were interested so I was left to play them by myself. Then I discovered the Asgard’s Games Club and a whole new world was opened up to me. The world of D&D.

Lesson 1: Learning to have Fun

For the first time I had found a group of people who were interested in the same things I was and they all played D&D. In no time I had brought the books and got to work learning the rules. Being dyslexic and having had problems at school, this was not a natural activity for me but I discovered how rewarding learning could be if properly motivated.

Instead of my school experience of “Memorise these facts and regurgitated them in an exam”, something I truly suck at, I was discovering a new form of learning. The people round the table helped and supported each other. Being able to check the rule book when I liked gave me confidence in my understanding and above all, what I learnt was useful. In a few short months, I absorbed vast quantities of information on every aspect of D&D but the most important thing I got from it was that learning can be fun if it is done properly.

Lesson 2: Less of Rule, More of a Guideline

D&D’s next lesson was that rules don’t matter.

At that time, I dabbled in the shallow end of the autistic spectrum. Subtleties and nuances were lost on me (even more than they are on the average teenager). So having learnt the rules, I obviously thought following the rules was what you did. GMs who broke the rules or ignored my interruption of the rules were a cause of great frustration.

Over time, and it was really quite long time, I become to realise that the fun was not in slavishly following the D&D rules but in the subtle social interaction that decides how rules are used, misused and ignored. These negotiations takes place constantly during a game and is not about the game at all, but the relationship between the people at the table. All the arguments I’ve ever seen at a gaming table have really been about social status and nothing to do with whether a dwarf with 18/00 Strength can catch a boulder thrown at him by a giant.

Dealing with the many weakness and contradictions of those early D&D books taught me how to listen, compromise and stand my ground at the appropriate time. Something far more useful than all those years at school learning to simply obey the rules.

Lesson 3: Teams Work

All RPGs are about team work. It is why I prefer them over the more confrontational war games or board games but D&D has something other games don’t have - Alignment.

By having evil and chaotic alignments in the game practically guaranteed party conflict when played by bunch of teenagers and young men. Every session, one or more party member would be be killed by another party member. When favourite characters were murdered, this resulted in grudges that could last for years.

Over time, this constant cycle of back-stabbing and in-fighting wore thin and it became obvious how counterproductive it was for both our characters and the players. Characters died and players had less fun. Slowly, week in and week out, we learnt the benefits of cooperation and how to achieve it. This has been a massive help in work and social situations. In fact, whenever you are trying to get something done, lessons in team work from around games table are invaluable.

Lesson 4: How to be Creative

It was not long after learning to play D&D that I that started writing my own adventures and this taught me the skills needed by anyone trying to be creative.

Schools generally work very hard at rubbing out creativity and imagination. They may encourage you to write stories or paint pictures, but they judge you on your technical ability - how well you spell or draw - not on the quality of your imagination or your creative process.

But D&D isn’t like that.

Many, many nights of entertainment have been derived from a few hastily written notes on a scrap of paper and this allows something very important to take place - experimentation. GMs can try out ideas incredibly easily and see what works and what doesn’t work very quickly. Often adapting their ideas on the fly as better ideas present themselves.

From this process I learnt how to dig myself out of creative dead ends, to recognise good & bad ideas, the importance of flexibility and not becoming too attached to an idea. These skills are not adventure writing skills but skills for life, for problem solving, for design, for engineering, for anything that requires a creative spark.

D&D - Life’s Playground

The skills I’ve learnt around the games table are not unique to me or to D&D. Many other games or situations can teach exactly the same lessons but for me D&D was the catalyst. This is why it will always be important to me. It gave me one the most precious things possible - somewhere safe in which to learn the rules of life.

The topic for this month’s carnival is D&D.

The game that launched it all has had its fair share of ups and downs over the last 35 years. From early success to bankruptcy to attacks from the Christian right to being a household name. There is no limit on what can be said about Dungeons & Dragons but I’m sticking to four broad themes.

Everything I Know, I Learnt From playing D&D

A lot gets written about the rules and the mechanics of the game but what really interests me is the social side of the game. As players, we tend to be geeks and nerds, on the fringe of other social groups. In playing D&D (and nearly all of start us with D&D) we find a social group in which we are accepted, often for the first time in our lives.

What has D&D given you socially - friends, lovers or enemies? Has playing taught you anything useful such as social skill or approaches to problem solving. What would your life be like if D&D never existed?

Edition Wars IV: A New Hope

It is impossible to talk about D&D without ending up talking about the edition wars. Ever since Dave Arneson forked the D&D product line with the D&D Basic set, there have been arguments about which version of D&D is best. For the last 12 months or more, 4e has been in a pitched battle with, well, everything that has gone before. Trying to do a carnival on Dungeons & Dragons without the subject coming up is like expecting the sun to rise in the west or teenagers to abstain from sex. It is simply not going to happen.

So if you are going to indulge in Edition Wars, I ask that you do it by trying something new. Find an edition of D&D that you have never played before, give it a go and then write about it. It can be any edition including all the D20 variants like Microlite20 or Pathfinder and you can be as rude about it as you like. But bring something new to the debate.

“You want to do what?”

The moment around the gaming table I live for, is that the moment when a player does something unexpected and brilliant. Completely blind-siding the GM with an clever use of a spell or using a magic item in a way it was never intend. I love this moment even when I’m GMing because suddenly I have to think in whole new ways.

What are your favourite D&D tricks? What clever uses of spells (or even normal uses of undervalued spells) and twisted but brilliant use of the rules can you pass on?

D&D: The Future

Where will Dungeons & Dragons be in five, ten or twenty years? Do you expect to still be playing it? Will anyone be playing it? After 35 years, does the game have any life left in it or will computer games finally devour it?

D&D Month at 6d6 Fireball

Each week during the carnival, I will writing about one of these subjects. If you are blogger, I hope you will join me in paying tribute to the granddaddy of our entire hobby. If you are reader, you can have your say in the comments either here or on the hundred or so other blogs in the network.

Let the carnival begin!

Today’s task is dealing with the back log of emails and orders but tomorrow is the 1st Day of July and that means the Blogger’s Carnival is coming to 6d6 Fireball. Watch out for more details tomorrow.

A quick reminder that the month is almost over which means you haven’t much time left to take part in June’s Blogger’s Carnival being hosted by Mad Brew Labs . The theme is Steampunk & Klokwerks - re-imagining the Victorian ere with mechanical technology. It is a great subject and my take on it, Is Steampunk a British Thing? is just one of many from the RPGN bloggers. Check out the comments on Mad Brew Labs for more great articles.

Next month, the carnival will be here on 6d6 Fireball. I cannot announce what the subject is just yet but as a hint, I will tell you that the carnival is all about a game produced by Tactical Study Rules. So get your thinking hats and get ready to join the carnival.

Starting on the 1st of July, 6d6 Fireball are hosting the Bloggers carnival. I’ve already got some articles lined up and as the subject is one that is close to people’s heart so I’m looking forward to some lively debate.

As soon as I can manage it (i.e. I’m already running late) the PDF for the June winners of the Adventure Writing Competition will be published. This will be followed by details of our open-playtest. As the month draws to the close, I will be deciding on the July winner of the competition. I already have two strong candidates and it is not too late to get started. Or you could take a bit more time and aim to be our August or September winner. Whatever your plan. the first step is to drop me an email - Competition (at) 6d6Fireball (dot) com - with an outline of your ideas.

Finally, July should see the relaunch of Twitterville. Our exercise in collaborative writing. This will be taking a major step forward in to something much more ambitious so watch out for news of that.

I will see you all in a week’s time.

Chatting to Dingle’s Games in the pub last night, discussing the idea that 3.5 is making a resurgence amongst gamers. When Paul got home he started this thread on Paizo and this got me thinking that we need a flag or icon that 3.5 gamers can gather behind. So instead spending my time doing work, I knock this up. Its resemblance to another logo is purely coincidental, honest.

I’m placing the logo into the public domain, so do what you like with it. Smaller 100px and 50px wide versions are also available.

Wizards have not been as successful in this as they wanted. Reaction to 4e is mixed and many 3.5 players are simply not interested in upgrading but surely it is just a matter time. Teenagers buying their first game are far more likely to purchase a new copy of 4e then a second-hand version of D&D 3.5. In five years time, 3.5 will only be played by a rump of older players who have a large financial and emotional commitment to the game just like there are a handful of people still playing 2nd edition or original AD&D.

Maybe, maybe not.

There is one good reason that the inevitable victory of 4th edition might not be so inevitable - freedom.

Wizards made one of the boldest commercial decisions ever when they created the D20 system and the Open Game License (OGL). A company with the dominant product in the industry, a brand that is a household name, made it easy for and encouraged other companies to use that brand to make money. This is like Disney saying that it OK for other companies to make and sell cartoons featuring Mickey Mouse. It was either genius or insanity.

Personally I think it is genius. Rather than fighting to protect and grow their existing market share, Wizards decided to grow the market. The OGL and the d20 system reinvigorate a tired brand and a tired industry. Suddenly there were d20 game systems appearing all other the place and a mass of third party products for D&D. WotC gambled that it was better to have 20% of a $100 million market than 30% of a $50 million market.

With the release of 4e, Wizards had a problem. A big corporate like Hasbro wasn’t interested in letting other people use its intellectual property but the cat was out of the bag. They could not simply make 4e proprietary again like the good old days of AD&D and 2nd edition. So Hasbro did what all corporates do in this situation - they used their market dominance. The 4e Game System License (GSL) made little difference the average gamer directly but to the numerous small and self-publishers that had been born thanks to the D&D 3.5 OGL, it was a killer.

The new 4th edition license was a lot more restrictive and most importantly, forced companies to choose between D&D 3.5 and 4e. The idea of throwing out a decade’s worth of product development was off-putting enough for the smaller firms but the new license was subject to change. Unlike the OGL, the GSL could be change or revoked by Wizards at anytime. You won’t find many business school professors who would recommend making the fate of your company dependent on the whim of another company who has no interest in your survival.

Wizards big mistake

If 4e’s license had been as open as 3.5’s then most suppliers would of upgraded as soon as their old stock sold out. Why would a small company produce new products for a shrinking 3.5 market when everyone is buying 4e rule books? But by making companies to choose between D&D 3.5 & 4e, they forced some companies into committing to 3.5 and those people have a real incentive for 3.5 to grow and prosper.

Pathfinder and Dungeon-A-Day are obvious examples of companies committing to D&D 3.5 but there are less obvious example and in many ways more worrying ones for Wizards.

Independently, two websites have appeared targeting exactly the same problem with D&D 3.5 - monster creation. The flexibility of the monster system in 3.5. was brilliant but even creating a mid-level boss was a major task that could take an hour or more. For time pressed or inexperienced GMs this is quite a barrier (and one Wizards addressed in 4e by making monsters a lot simpler).

Dingle’s Games Monster Generator and the more advanced NPC Generator takes a lot of the effort out of creating monsters. The NPC generator even includes magic items and spell selection. As a GM it gives you real power over your monsters and allows you to fine tune them for your party. [ DISCLAIMER: I've been gaming with Paul who runs Dingle's Games for 25 years and I helped him with some aspects of the web site so obviously I'm slightly biased ]. Appearing a few months later, MonsterAdvancer.com is less advanced in its features and less logical to use but it is very slick in its presentation.

Both of these sites represent a massive investment of time and a vote of confidence in a game system that WotC are trying to kill. More importantly, they take a very different route to Wizards when it comes to online tools. Whilst 4e tries to simplify the system for the players overall, the trend with D&D 3.5 (and its derivatives) is to simplify the life of the GM through online tools and content.

The GM is king.

Gamers tend to start playing in their early teens and stop playing in their early twenties when they discover drink, girls, jobs and mortgages. Any product that isn’t attracting young, new players is doomed. Wizards know this and hence 4e is targeted at the young teens market with World of Warcraft like game play and simpler rules. But Wizards have underestimated the power of the GM.

It is people who are willing to GM who drive the games industry. They are mostly likely to buy the books and they are most likely to recruit new people into the game. And why do GMs do it? Because they enjoy being creative. Roleplaying is all about creativity and the GM is the heart of that creativity. A game system that allows GMs to exercise their creativity will always win over one that doesn’t.

D&D 3.5 gives that freedom to create. The growth of sites like Dingle’s Games are both a consequence of that freedom and verhicle for spreading that fredom. This feedback loop of creative freedom enabling more creatively puts 3.5 in a strong position to attract new players and grow.

This does not mean that D&D 3.5 will surpass 4.0 or even survive long-term but it is not going down without a fight.

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