{"id":1412,"date":"2014-06-08T11:52:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-08T18:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1412"},"modified":"2014-06-08T11:54:09","modified_gmt":"2014-06-08T18:54:09","slug":"now-is-the-summer-of-our-new-rpg-content-why-you-should-care-about-dd-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=1412","title":{"rendered":"“Now is the summer of our”… RPG content: Why you should care about D&D right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Untitled\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[tl;dr<\/a>\u00a0version: The next few months are going to redefine how we understand roleplaying games in popular culture. A sub-culture war of opinions and capitalism is playing out in a small sector of the board game industry and it will reverberate throughout society.]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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Next month, the first in a series of releases will usher in the Fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>. The game will be published by Wizards of the Coast (publisher of the\u00a0Magic: the Gathering<\/a> collectible card game). Wizards, in turn, is owned by Hasbro<\/a> (yes, like the publisher of Transformers and Monopoly products). For both companies, D&D is a relatively small-potatoes product. However, the game is engrained in today\u2019s society in ways that extend far beyond the line of hardbound books that are the basic rules set for the game.<\/p>\n

For example, when I have been telling people I have been studying roleplaying games lately, I usually have to offer a bit more context. It typically goes like this:<\/p>\n

\u00a0Me: \u201cLately, my research has focused on stuff related to roleplaying games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other person: blank look<\/p>\n

Me: \u201cLike Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>\u2026 y\u2019know, nerds rolling dice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other person: look of recognition<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For the general public, RPGs are tied to this specific brand: Dungeons & Dragons<\/em>. In fact, Jon Peterson\u2019s book<\/a> makes the argument that the term \u201croleplaying game\u201d was basically created so competitors in the \u201870s could publish products and claim they were \u201clike D&D\u201d without worry of litigation (even in those early days, D&D\u2019s owners knew the value of brand recognition). For those not entrenched in the litany of robust titles and games available today, D&D is a signifier of a genre, a disposition, and a product rolled up in one. D&D is <\/em>how most people understand RPGs (even vaguely) and its popularity \u2013 in recent books<\/a>, TV shows like Community<\/em><\/a>, and immeasurable influence on game and film industries \u2013 is huge.<\/p>\n

However, if you haven\u2019t been playing RPGs in the past few years you would be surprised to know that D&D \u2013 by the few, foggy metrics available – is not the top-selling or most popular RPG being played. Though there are many reasons behind the dwindling in popularity, the most central one is that D&D\u2019s creators ended up fracturing their market base. Different editions of the game are more popular to different players. As illustration, note that when your phone or your computer\u2019s operating system gets updated you inevitably shift over to the new platform (often when the dwindling lifecycle of your current device requires you to buy new hardware). We are naturally predisposed to upgrading to the next OS with digital tools. However, when your operating system is a set of books, these shifts aren\u2019t required and \u2013 if you take umbrage with new system mechanics (such as many did when D&D 4th<\/sup> edition seemed to be paralleling game mechanics seen in World of Warcraft<\/em>) – you could always just go back to an earlier, more familiar edition of the game.\u00b9<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Rise of Pathfinder and OSR<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the same time that D&D\u2019s creators fractured their market, they also opened the door to 3rd<\/sup> party publishing. This, by all accounts, was a good thing: it allowed other publishers to share their material and expand what is available for the game without fear of lawsuit.\u00b2<\/a> \u00a0However, in doing so, one company, Paizo<\/a> (once a publisher of official D&D magazines) published a cleaner, more refined version of the 3.5 edition ruleset. By setting a new path away from the 4th<\/sup> edition changes, this new game, Pathfinder<\/em><\/a>, has become the dominating market force in RPGs. Pathfinder<\/em> is a legal remix of D&D and is currently played and bought by more players than D&D products.<\/p>\n

Similarly, with the rules for new editions of D&D getting evermore complex, older players have romanticized the simplicity of earlier incarnations of the game. The Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement<\/a> also refines earlier rules from D&D and makes them more accessible.\u00b3<\/a><\/p>\n

Throw into this mix popular RPGs related to recognized otaku culture like Star Wars and Firefly4<\/sup><\/a> and you can see the way D&D has diminished for players. I should briefly add that the indie-RPG market is also booming. Kickstarter and crowd funding have done amazing work at democratizing the RPG industry in generally positive ways (my friend Calvin\u2019s Kickstarter<\/a>, for example, has a few more days to go!).<\/p>\n

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The Prodigal Son Returns<\/strong><\/p>\n

And so here we are in 2014:<\/p>\n

It is the 40th<\/sup> anniversary of \u201cthe world’s oldest fantasy roleplaying game<\/a>.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a> Starting this summer, D&D is returning with a new, fifth edition (simply called Dungeons and Dragons \u2013 probably in an effort to avoid the edition wars). Info about the new edition and an extensive open playtest of it have made this a speculative time for the RPG industry. When new products that are not D&D are announced to be released this summer (usually at the industry\u2019s main convention, Gen Con) they do so not so much with an elephant in the room as with an elder red dragon that is devouring the elephant and lighting the room on fire.<\/p>\n

By the time the game comes out there will be seven different<\/em> editions of the game available (the pre-\u201cadvanced version, 1st<\/sup>, 2nd<\/sup>, 3, 3.5, 4, and then fifth) digitally<\/a>6<\/sup><\/a> . This new edition looks like it may simplify the rules for newer players and add flexibility for players to adjust complexity.<\/a><\/p>\n

D&D has many different markets it is trying to address with this new edition and it will be interesting to see if it can reunite its fractured kingdom. As a researcher that\u2019s been primarily interested in what happens at the gaming table (and less at the macro-level of RPG industry described in this post) I\u2019m curious about a few things related to the release of the new edition:<\/p>\n