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30 Years of D&D Extravaganza 78

Posted by CowboyNeal from the dice-still-not-going-to-roll-themselves dept.
Klytus writes "GamingReport.com is reporting on the events Wizards of the Coast has planned for this summer's 30th Anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. Amongst the events is a 'World D&D Game Day.' There are also plans for a large coffee table book on the 30 years of D&D."
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30 Years of D&D Extravaganza More

30 Years of D&D Extravaganza

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  • Finally! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by metrazol ( 142037 ) <jwm33@corne[ ]edu ['ll.' in gap]> on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:42AM (#8267658)
    D&D is finally main stream. After 30 years Dungeons & Dragons is no longer the butt of jokes about "probing dungeons" and questions like "Why do dragons horde gold?" And I'm glad to see that the misconception that only pasty white kids who recoil at sunlight play D&D...

    Wait... ...thist just means they're now pasty white out of work dot-commers who play D&D...
    • I would have creamed in my shorts if I had games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights when I was a kid. Hell I thought Ultima III was amazing. Then Ultima IV had secret doors!!! Then balloons for travel!!! Then 3D Dungeons!!! Amazing! That and Wizardry kept me going for years.
    • So why do dragons horde gold? What good does it do for them anyway? And what is this sunlight thing? Is it good or is it whack?

  • D&D and Religion (Score:5, Funny)

    by sjorgnsn ( 514708 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @04:56AM (#8267691)
    ~Jesus saves!~

    The rest of you take damage.

  • Thanks to WotC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:01AM (#8267701)

    As a long time D&D player and enthusiast of all things fantasy, I think it's fantastic what Wizards of the Coast has done for the game. The care and attention to detail they have put into the new rulebooks could only come from true enthusiasts.

    Of course, buying 3.5 so soon after forking over the cash for 3 was kinda, well, annoying. What can you do? The D&D property has seen much worse at the head of its ownership. Here's to another 30 years of gaming that doesn't require electricity. Seeing as how peak oil [lifeaftertheoilcrash.com] is on its way, I predict a surge in D&D populartiy. Just kidding. About the energy crisis.

  • ahh..the memories (Score:3, Funny)

    by raised fist ( 712594 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:41AM (#8267814)
    MAGIC MISSILE! yep

  • D&D vs. MMORPGs vs. conversational roleplaying (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pond823 ( 643768 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:42AM (#8267817)
    D&D itself is under threat from MMORGs, however face to face roleplaying isn't. Why?
    D&D, which I play and enjoy, is micro scale wargaming with a little roleplaying thrown in. Listening to two kids on the train on the way into work yesterday talk about playing a MMORG (maybe Everquest) I heard the same excitement in their voices about levels, uber weapons and collecting runes and potions that I had at that age when playing D&D. They have no need to play D&D.
    More and more non-d20 based games are beginning to appear that emphasis communication, games like the The Dying Earth, My Life With Master and Pantheon. These games can't easily be played over the internet until cheap video conferencing arrives, and until then I'd say they will continue to be niche, but successful, games while 3.5e D&D fails to grow much more. Having said that there are millions of D&D players.

    • Re:D&D vs. MMORPGs vs. conversational roleplay (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Having said that there are millions of D&D players."

      Are there really? In "Understanding Comics" we're told taht the total readship of comic books in North America, as of press time, was about 500,000 "active" readers.

      It would be very strange if more people actively play D&D than actively read comics... Though, obviously, the world-wide conversion is very different. Other countries read more comics per capita than the U.S., and I know nothing about the popularity of D&D vs. other things in f

      • Are there really?

        Yes. Y'see, once you buy the books, you can game forever--it's like a chess set.

        Comic books, OTOH, are a monthy investment for a small page count, and generally poor quality in art and story with little reusability.

        WotC did a survey on gaming habits about four years back, and the numbers were fairly impressive then.

    • Re:D&D vs. MMORPGs vs. conversational roleplay (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Corfitz ( 669547 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @06:47AM (#8268003)
      I've been playing RPGs for the last 20 years and have had my share of (A)D&D. That was mainly in the beginning years before going over other RPG's like RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire etc.

      In my opinion D&D shows its age. RPGs have developed quite a lot in the last 30 years, and accumulating XPs / micromanagement is not as essential a part of modern-day RPGs. In a way the XP hunt (as the parent post writes) resembles the scores from computer games and MMORPGs take over.

      It's become more and more difficult to get young people (early teenagers) into playing the usual face-to-face RPG in the last 10 years. As far as I can see it there are two reasons: computer games and card trading games. Most of the find it more fun to play computer games than traditional RPGs, and while it at first looked as if Magic and other card games might spur the interest of face-to-face RPGs it turned out that many of the card players kept playing cards and never got into RPGs.

      Part of the fun from conversational or traditional RPG is that you are playing with people who've had some experience in life (and have thought a bit about what governs peoples actions). And there are differences in experiences, and it can be very difficult for a 15 year old player to roleplay an adult romance, to react to the emotions a parent might feel at the risk of losing a child etc. These things come with age and there is really nothing we can do about it - besides keep introducing RPG to older teenagers.

      Currently the best thing for traditional round-the-table RPS (in my opinion) is the popularity of live-action RPG. Except maybe for plastic-sword-fighting scenarios the LRPGs are hugely popular and often have a 50:50 male female ratio (which - I'm certain - makes the games even more popular). While some of the LRPG players would never dream of playing table RPGs, we managed to get relatively many new players by pushing the ordinary games to LRPG players.

      Just my $0.02

      • Re:D&D vs. MMORPGs vs. conversational roleplay (Score:5, Insightful)

        by sckeener ( 137243 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @10:32AM (#8268929)
        Hmmm...I've been thinking about this for a long time, but it finally hit me when I went over to a friends house to play. They had kids and they played D&D.

        I know this is probably unheard of on /., but there are actually two sexes. We need the other sex to breed more future gamers.

        (seriously) face to face gaming is the best no matter what game is being played. All of my favorite memories of games involved other people face to face. Even LAN games are the same way. I've played tons of Starcraft online, but it is the games with friends in the same room that I remember. I've played tons of dungeon hack-n-slash D&D, but I don't remember it. I do remember all the role-playing D&D games.

        Maybe some Neural specialist could explain why that is....why is it easier for my mind to link memories of face to face games, but not online games.....

    • D&D is what you make it. The very fact that it doesn't have rules to control every situation and almost any dice-based resolution comes down attributes and the DM's decision makes the game incredibly flexible and easy. This makes role playing in the D&D environment a whole lot easier than in some systems which micro-manage characters with their rules. Besides which D&D has a very poor combat system for anything even vaguely strategic (like wargaming).

  • Event (Score:3, Funny)

    by Flyboy Connor ( 741764 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @07:33AM (#8268130)
    I assume they will have a big show with a live presentation from the Dead Alewives [deadalewives.com] (mp3).
  • Except for the people who play D&D nobody takes it seriously in the tabletop RPG community. Its the game you play when you are 15, before you learn about things like GURPS or Champions or White Wolf.
    • I can't believe you put Champions and White Wolf games in the same category as GURPS. I'd say those two are closer to D&D than they are to GURPS in terms of realism, and I use the term loosely.
    • Considering that the majority of the entire tabletop RPG community consists of D&D players, your statement is idiotic. It's like saying only 75% of all people consider America to be a superpower.

      D20 (the system on which D&D is based) has a market share that completely dwarfs all other competitors (and always has) and it is getting bigger all the time. Why is that? Because the game is simple enough to be welcoming to newbies and provides enough flexibility to keep experienced people coming back.
      • 1) D&D is bigger because D&D was first. It has 10 years lead time on other modern gaming systems.
        2) any gaming system can be acceptable with a good gm, but if you have constantly use modified rules and change the objectives the problem is the system.
        3) I was not expressing an opinion on D20, ONLY on D&D itself
        4) While I agree that many games do get their players from D&D games...you can also say many people have been turned off from roleplaying entirely by D&D.

        I played D&D for se

        • Re:D&D (Score:3, Interesting)

          by theghost ( 156240 )
          1) D&D is bigger because D&D was first. It has 10 years lead time on other modern gaming systems.
          1) D&D was bigger because it was first. It's bigger now because it has kept evolving while maintaining its core aesthetic. It tries to appeal to a bigger audience. It has seen some of its greatest growth in the past few years because of this. Most other modern games have specialised themselves out of the wider audience or they are not newbie friendly.

          2) any gaming system can be acceptable with

  • Reminders that I am that old... Rush, the band not the guys, released their first album and I turn 30. Hand me my cain.

  • Just a funny little note... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Lendrick ( 314723 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @11:29AM (#8269525) Homepage Journal
    One time, I was browsing through an insurance brochure, and I came across something called "AD&D Insurance" or somesuch (or maybe AD&D was some subsection of life insurance, I'm not sure which). As an avid roleplayer, that really jumped out at me, so I took a look.

    Turns out AD&D stood for "Accidental Death & Dismemberment."

    How appropriate. :)
  • Having said that, I don't see what the big fuss is over the OGL. 3Ed at times steals wholesale from Black Isle's SPECIAL system-most notably with feats, and I've no doubt other of the changes are taken from other gaming systems. As such, it seems WOTC's main aim with the OGL is not to aid it's fans, but to distance itself from any claim on other people's intellectual property

  • Growing but not growing up... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by al!ethel ( 713058 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:26PM (#8271718) Homepage Journal
    I started playing D&D games, many years ago, and started off with the first edition in the boxed set. Since then I have seen major revisions, changes, arguments and even fights over rules. The game has changed, but many of the player have not! I actually recently quit gaming, because even with the new rules, the death of THAC0 and the advent of mainstream MMPORPGs, I just keep on running into the same types of games. I tried some of the inde games, and found much humor and quite a bit of innovation, but I kept running into the same types of players and charaters. I am looking forward to where the game and the culture are going to go over the next couple of years due to the established feeling that a 30 year anniversery gives. I know a bunch of teenagers who are very interested in gaming, reading and fantasy, and all of them identify themselves as being on the "fringe". Now that D&D has grown up, I wonder if there is going to be a shift towards frat boys and yuppies getting into the game?

  • Great (Score:3)

    by metamatic ( 202216 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:09PM (#8272245) Homepage Journal
    Now, can we please have the 3E core rules available as an e-book, pretty please?

    • Re:Great (Score:2, Informative)

      by E-Sabbath ( 42104 )
      They've been available for months. As the Standard Reference Document at www.opengamingfoundation.org or at www.rpgbooks.com The RPGbooks deal is pretty good. Order the PDF, and every time there's an update, they'll tell you and you get it for free. I keep a copy on my Palm.
      • (a) Those aren't the core rulebooks, they're just the d20 SRD.

        (b) They're in RTF format with the tables all mangled, not very useful.

        (c) rpgbooks.com just says "Nothing here right now".

  • bad dice (Score:3, Funny)

    by raised fist ( 712594 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:36PM (#8272574)
    I was reading all the posts but its taken me a while to reply. You see I rolled 1d20 to post and rolled a critical miss which made my hand crash through the keyboard. jeez!

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