Over at Discourse And Dragons they highlighted three articles via The Escapist website about the Past, Present and Future of D&D. I found it to be an interesting read and it touched on the different editions, the 'edition wars', Hasbro & WotC....and that either the tabletop pen & paper rpg is dead or we are on the brink of a new golden age.
*** Enter Crazy Rant Mode ***
I'm fearing the official 'D&D' brand is going the way of the dinosaur. Eventually the proprietary materials will be swallowed up into the Magic: The Gathering brand where mind flayers and beholders will live on in card form only.
Paizo and Pathfinder have approximately 3 years before they over saturate their market (I'm already feeling that) and they release Pathfinder 2: Electric Bugaloo Edition or Ultimate Pathfinder which is a total overhaul of the original rule set and it pisses off long time Pathfinder fans which starts an edition war within their ranks. Or they will just dump everything into this MMO they want to do and get devoured by Blizzard and EA for encroaching into WoW and TOR territory.
Posthuman Studios will still be awesome and find a nice niche in the tabletop community. I think these are the guys and gals that will break out of the traditional table top model and use technology and some forward thinking to turn their game into something really unique.
Chaosium will still be scaring the shit out of players with the Call of Cthulhu brand. Steve Jackson Games will keep veering into casual games with more Munchkin and dice games (Steve will still be rolling around in piles of money...and plush tentacles).
Catalyst Game Labs will still be doing Shadowrun and Battletech. With luck Cosmic Patrol and Leviathans will take off as well. A possible 5th Ed of Shadowrun may be on the horizon in the next 5 years to streamline the rules a bit more and reduce the sheer volume of dice needed to roll.
Frog God Games, Green Ronin and other small-ish publishers will still keep cranking out stuff they want to do and keep fans happy. I see them continuing this for a long time.
And self published games using a version of the old OGL will be put out there on a regular basis keeping the old grognards and fans of other rules sets happy for years to come. All on PDF or another electronic format no less.
With that I'm retreating back into my hiding spot in my house so I can clutch my dice and reminisce about the good old days.
*** Enter Crazy Rant Mode ***
I'm fearing the official 'D&D' brand is going the way of the dinosaur. Eventually the proprietary materials will be swallowed up into the Magic: The Gathering brand where mind flayers and beholders will live on in card form only.
Paizo and Pathfinder have approximately 3 years before they over saturate their market (I'm already feeling that) and they release Pathfinder 2: Electric Bugaloo Edition or Ultimate Pathfinder which is a total overhaul of the original rule set and it pisses off long time Pathfinder fans which starts an edition war within their ranks. Or they will just dump everything into this MMO they want to do and get devoured by Blizzard and EA for encroaching into WoW and TOR territory.
Posthuman Studios will still be awesome and find a nice niche in the tabletop community. I think these are the guys and gals that will break out of the traditional table top model and use technology and some forward thinking to turn their game into something really unique.
Chaosium will still be scaring the shit out of players with the Call of Cthulhu brand. Steve Jackson Games will keep veering into casual games with more Munchkin and dice games (Steve will still be rolling around in piles of money...and plush tentacles).
Catalyst Game Labs will still be doing Shadowrun and Battletech. With luck Cosmic Patrol and Leviathans will take off as well. A possible 5th Ed of Shadowrun may be on the horizon in the next 5 years to streamline the rules a bit more and reduce the sheer volume of dice needed to roll.
Frog God Games, Green Ronin and other small-ish publishers will still keep cranking out stuff they want to do and keep fans happy. I see them continuing this for a long time.
And self published games using a version of the old OGL will be put out there on a regular basis keeping the old grognards and fans of other rules sets happy for years to come. All on PDF or another electronic format no less.
With that I'm retreating back into my hiding spot in my house so I can clutch my dice and reminisce about the good old days.
