Interview WotC's Ed Stark interview about D&D gaming

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Atari

And basically, why it's going down the toilet but selling more copies! <A href="http://www.gameinformer.com/">GameInformer</a> has posted <A href="http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/200408/N04.0831.1912.11478.htm">an interview</a> with <b>Ed Stark</b> of <a href="http://www.wizards.com/">Wizards of the Coast</a> about D&D gaming, <a href="http://www.atari.com">Atari</a>'s games, and other stuff. Here's one such clip which gave me the giggles:
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<blockquote><b>GI: So do you think it’s become easier to translate the Dungeons & Dragons, the whole concept, to kids now?
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Stark:</b> Oh yeah. Part of that is just the fact that fantasy and things like Harry Potter, and the upcoming Narnia series, and of course Lord of the Rings are big and popular among kids. And the Japanese anime and stuff like that, and Pokemon certainly helped us a lot. It is easier to describe to a kid what you’re doing. But we’re also making strides by creating a basic game and by encouraging Atari when they want to do a game like Demon Stone, which is very action oriented and very rules-light, you can just start playing right away. You don’t have to read through this long rulebook. It helps people to transition in, and the more they like something the more time they are willing to invest. So by the time the kid has played Demon Stone, maybe played some D&D miniatures, maybe played the basic game, he’s willing to crack open that 320-page player’s handbook and play because he knows “I don’t have to read all of this. I want to play a fighter. I need to read the two pages on the fighter, and one page on the dwarf, and maybe a couple of feats, and I’m ready to go. And later on when I want to play a wizard I’ll read the wizard stuff and spells and all of that. No big deal.”</blockquote>
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<i>Thanks, <b>Pokemon</b>! You've made D&D what it is today!</i> or <i><b>Mordenkainen's Faithful Hound</b>! I choose you!</i>
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Spotted at: <a href="http://www.homelanfed.com">HomeLAN Fed</a>
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[miserychick]

Aha! At last the true reasons behind the Paladin "Poke-Mount" rule are revealed!

 

[Elwro]

"Upcoming Narnia series"? WTF?

 

[Ausir]

There's a series of Narnia films in production.

 

[Elwro]

Eh, I hope it'll be better than the atrocious series I had watched as a child. It was so boring.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

I know that there are people who do not like to read the manuals for comp. games and just want to fire it up and play. I'm not one of these people, but whatever. There are certainly plenty of games that do not require reading the manual, nor that even really need one.
But in PnP - why are you even playing if you don't want to read the soruce books? The stuff is not some dense arcane tome. Most of the stuff in them is pretty neat if you are into that kind of thing and it just might be just a little important to maybe understand some of the mechanics of combat (what can you do in a turn, what is a standard action,. what will draw an AoO) befoire playing. At least one should know more than "My character is a dwarf and they live in mountains and he is fighter that swings a sword".
Whatever. I would think that if you liked this kind of stuff you would *want* to read more about it, the lore, the rules, spell effects, what feats might be fun (more than "Power Attack - that sounds wicked awesome I'm taking that), what skills actually do etc.
It may be my prejudice cuz I don't at the time even know anyone with whom to play PnP and I still enjoy reading source books.

Altho to be fair if some simplified version draws in somebody to explore the world of RPGs more deeply and develop a more comprehensive knowledge of it then cool I guess.

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

Eh, I hope it'll be better than the atrocious series I had watched as a child. It was so boring.

I remember that, the ice queen used the give me nightmares.

 

[Spazmo]

So D&D is like crack? They get you hooked on Demonstone, then you're on the mini game and suddenly you're researching spells and sucking dick to just get one... more... splatbook...

 

[Sol Invictus]

I can't wait for the Ranger and Beastmaster classes to be able to tame pets and keep them in magical cubes for dueling purposes.

 

[taks]

maybe we'll get that magic chef after all. my personal hope is for the doomsayer cleric. imagine an entire cabal of clerics hurling themselves from the towers in the town center. what a mess to clean up!

taks

(oh, related to that screwy 10 least popular character classes).

 

[RGE]

But in PnP - why are you even playing if you don't want to read the soruce books? The stuff is not some dense arcane tome. Most of the stuff in them is pretty neat if you are into that kind of thing...

They may be neat, but the basic rules for D&D took me a couple of weeks to read, understand and remember (somewhat). That's a lot of time invested, and while I have DMed several sessions, I'm not entirely sure it was worth the effort.

I would think that if you liked this kind of stuff you would *want* to read more about it, the lore, the rules, spell effects, what feats might be fun (more than "Power Attack - that sounds wicked awesome I'm taking that), what skills actually do etc.
It may be my prejudice cuz I don't at the time even know anyone with whom to play PnP and I still enjoy reading source books.

I don't really like reading about rules, I like playing the games. And every number that I have to make up for an NPC is another hurdle to get over in order to design a scenario. I didn't use to mind when I was a teenager, but over the years I've grown incredibly bored with rules. Though when I was a teenager we had simpler rules, so maybe that's why.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Power Attack never sounded 'wicked awesome' to me. I knew that there had to be some accuracy-related drawback to doing a tremendous amount of damage, and there is. It's surprising that there are people out there who'd actually think that a Power Attack is 'wicked awesome' just because of the way it sounds.

 

[Monkeyfinger]

It's surprising that there are people out there who'd actually think that a Power Attack is 'wicked awesome' just because of the way it sounds.

No it's not.

 

[Anonymous]

" and play because he knows “I don’t have to read all of this. I want to play a fighter. I need to read the two pages on the fighter, and one page on the dwarf, and maybe a couple of feats, and I’m ready to go. And later on when I want to play a wizard I’ll read the wizard stuff and spells and all of that. No big deal.”"

Yeah, because playing with a guy who has a filled in character sheet and knows jackshit about what to do rocks to play with.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Even Pokemon has more complexity than that.

 

[Petey_the_Skid]

I love to read rulebooks myself too...in fact I'd wager I have over a thousand dollars of rpg crap sitting on my shelf, however I don't necessarily expect all my players to know the rules by heart, especially if they're just starting out.

Dropping 120 bucks(canadian) on 3 200+ page books just to figure out how to play D&D isn't necessary, you to have to get the player to learn the basics and if he gets hooked, he'll buy the books later.

What's wrong with a simple version of D&D? Nothing really.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The first thing that's wrong with it is WotC marketting D&D to people who don't want to read. WotC makes most of their money off people buying books. It's kind of like Nike marketting shoes to people without feet. It's a dumb idea.

 

[Crazy Tuvok]

I don't expect nor demand that new players have spent a truckload of dough on the source books (tho you can get a players handbook on the cheap if you look around) nor that they are familiar with every single rule and cite its page number - hell even good DMs can't do this.

But there is difference between accepting that new players will take time to get to know the rules and *encouraging* them via interviews to "hey read two pages on fighter and get in there! Reading?! Reading is for chumps - you are a dwarven fighter; a short guy that likes to smash things up real good like".

As LlamaGod said playing with people who *willfully* know fuckall about the rules is a real drag.

Saint - excellent point. PR your company out of its cashcow!

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Guess this sort of explains why people in my group keep saying Thunder Twin Power... ACTIVATE!!!

It's surprising that there are people out there who'd actually think that a Power Attack is 'wicked awesome' just because of the way it sounds.

No it's not.

N00b. Power attack + true strike + great cleave = pwn.

 

[Sol Invictus]

If I were the DM and one of my players was abusing the True Strike ability, I'd have a magical force violently rip the Thunder Twin out of the wielder's hands, severing his fingers in the process.

Of course, that begs the question as to why the DM would put that weapon in the campaign in the first place, seeing how easily exploitable it can become.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Nah, dwarven twins from some lame FR thingie are called Thunder Twins, and it sounds like some hackneyed anime crap where you expect to see the twins join hands or touch little gems on their heads or do a little dance and then beams of light come out and, oh, nevermind.

 

[Volourn]

"Thunder Twin out of the wielder's hands"

Hahahahahahaha.

Hahahaha.

Hahahaha.


Please,w hen whining about stuff at least know what youa re whining about.

Gonna rip Thunder Twins out of someone's hands? Haha. Those are mighty big hands if they can fit two dwarves in them...


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.



Besdies, True Strike can't be abuseable. That's a myth.

 

[Sarkile]

I was wondering if Exitium knew of some obscure sourcebook I haven't read or something. Yeah, the Thunder Twins is a FR thing.

 

[Volourn]

On second thought; you gots a point. Maybe I'm talking about something I know nothing about. Maybe, Exitium is right.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

How would he have a point when the entire joke went completely over his head?