D&D and "innovation"
Wizards of the Coast has been spreading this BS around and all the internet ninnies have been repeating it. The gist is basically that to survive, D&D needs to constantly be recreated from scratch to keep up with current trends. Well, this is complete crap, as I've already implied. For one thing, when D&D came out, up through the end of the 90's, it was the best-selling RPG, despite TONS of innovative alternatives, and it was completely old-fashioned when it came out. It was based on wargames over a hundred years old that had a small but dedicated playerbase. The fantasy stories that inspired it were mainly around 50 years old when the game came out. Trying to be trendy has only made its audience shrink more and more. But the modern corporate thinking for this sort of thing is that their crappy products can't be to blame, it has to be a problem with the audience not wanting their fantastic products, what with changing tastes and alternative entertainment. This is why Marvel and DC are on their last legs. I wish Wizards of the Coast, Marvel, and DC WOULD go out of business. They've become out-of-touch corporate garbage factories.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the basic game is sound. It needed some cleaning up, for sure, but the basic game is sound. Their biggest problem is trying to cater to people who don't want to play D&D, while assuming the people who already like the game will stick around no matter how unrecognizable they make it. I read people talking about the future product -- they're calling it "D&D Next" now (barf) -- and I can't understand what they're talking about. They've all sort of accumulated this weird idea of how things are, and as long as they all say it, they figure it must be true. D&D has no future as long as clueless corporate types and internet morons are in charge of it.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the basic game is sound. It needed some cleaning up, for sure, but the basic game is sound. Their biggest problem is trying to cater to people who don't want to play D&D, while assuming the people who already like the game will stick around no matter how unrecognizable they make it. I read people talking about the future product -- they're calling it "D&D Next" now (barf) -- and I can't understand what they're talking about. They've all sort of accumulated this weird idea of how things are, and as long as they all say it, they figure it must be true. D&D has no future as long as clueless corporate types and internet morons are in charge of it.