Misfit
Lawful neutral
Dungeons & Dragons Remake Uses Players’ Input - NYTimes.com
True believers have lost faith. Factions squabble. The enemies are not only massed at the gates of the kingdom, but they have also broken through.
This may sound like the back story for an epic trilogy. Instead, it’s the situation faced by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, the venerable fantasy role-playing game many consider to be the grandfather of the video game industry. Gamers bicker over Dungeons & Dragons rules. Some have left childhood pursuits behind. And others have spurned an old-fashioned, tabletop fantasy role-playing game for shiny electronic competitors like World of Warcraft and the Elder Scrolls.
But there might yet be hope for Dungeons & Dragons, known as D&D. On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, announced that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise.
The game “is a unique entertainment experience because it’s crafted by the players at the table, and every gaming session is different,” said Liz Schuh, who directs publishing and licensing for Dungeons & Dragons. “We want to take that idea of the players crafting that experience to the next level and say: ‘Help us craft the rules. Help us craft how this game is played.’ ”
Dungeons & Dragons, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, was the first commercially published role-playing game when it came out in 1974. In the game imagination is the playscape, assisted by graph-paper maps, miniature figurines of orcs and hobbits and a referee called a “dungeon master” who moderates an improvised story with a pretend fellowship of wizards, warriors and rogues.Players toss polyhedral dice and consult tomes of rules to determine outcomes. It has shades of the “Lord of the Rings,” except that in the game players assembled around a table get to be the characters.
“There is something fundamental to the D&D role-playing game that answers a need for people,” said Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development — that need being telling your own heroic story.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s Dungeons & Dragons grew from a cult sensation into something more, surviving, even thriving, after unfounded accusations that it led teenagers to practice black magic and commit suicide. Since the game’s birth an estimated 20 million people have played it and spent $1 billion on its products. Many computer coders once dabbled in the hobby, which explains why so many video games today use a “run through a dungeon and kill monsters” premise, and borrow concepts — avatars, levels, open-ended stories, cooperative game play — pioneered by Dungeons & Dragons. The nerdy pastime has even become a badge of honor for hipsters and artists, with the likes of the film director Jon Favreau, the comedian Stephen Colbert, the N.B.A. star Tim Duncan and the actor Vin Diesel professing their love of the game, and the NBC comedy “Community” using it as a plot point in a recent episode.
True believers have lost faith. Factions squabble. The enemies are not only massed at the gates of the kingdom, but they have also broken through.
This may sound like the back story for an epic trilogy. Instead, it’s the situation faced by the makers of Dungeons & Dragons, the venerable fantasy role-playing game many consider to be the grandfather of the video game industry. Gamers bicker over Dungeons & Dragons rules. Some have left childhood pursuits behind. And others have spurned an old-fashioned, tabletop fantasy role-playing game for shiny electronic competitors like World of Warcraft and the Elder Scrolls.
But there might yet be hope for Dungeons & Dragons, known as D&D. On Monday, Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro subsidiary that owns the game, announced that a new edition is under development, the first overhaul of the rules since the contentious fourth edition was released in 2008. And Dungeons & Dragons’ designers are also planning to undertake an exceedingly rare effort for the gaming industry over the next few months: asking hundreds of thousands of fans to tell them how exactly they should reboot the franchise.
The game “is a unique entertainment experience because it’s crafted by the players at the table, and every gaming session is different,” said Liz Schuh, who directs publishing and licensing for Dungeons & Dragons. “We want to take that idea of the players crafting that experience to the next level and say: ‘Help us craft the rules. Help us craft how this game is played.’ ”
Dungeons & Dragons, created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, was the first commercially published role-playing game when it came out in 1974. In the game imagination is the playscape, assisted by graph-paper maps, miniature figurines of orcs and hobbits and a referee called a “dungeon master” who moderates an improvised story with a pretend fellowship of wizards, warriors and rogues.Players toss polyhedral dice and consult tomes of rules to determine outcomes. It has shades of the “Lord of the Rings,” except that in the game players assembled around a table get to be the characters.
“There is something fundamental to the D&D role-playing game that answers a need for people,” said Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development — that need being telling your own heroic story.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s Dungeons & Dragons grew from a cult sensation into something more, surviving, even thriving, after unfounded accusations that it led teenagers to practice black magic and commit suicide. Since the game’s birth an estimated 20 million people have played it and spent $1 billion on its products. Many computer coders once dabbled in the hobby, which explains why so many video games today use a “run through a dungeon and kill monsters” premise, and borrow concepts — avatars, levels, open-ended stories, cooperative game play — pioneered by Dungeons & Dragons. The nerdy pastime has even become a badge of honor for hipsters and artists, with the likes of the film director Jon Favreau, the comedian Stephen Colbert, the N.B.A. star Tim Duncan and the actor Vin Diesel professing their love of the game, and the NBC comedy “Community” using it as a plot point in a recent episode.