+Joe D , otherwise known as Joe the Lawyer, posted earlier today that WotC is apparently short DMs for the D&D Next events they are running at GenCon.
Talk about piss poor planning.
What are they offering to get folks to step up and run D&D Next? (I wonder if you have to agree to the NDA if you want to DM / play at GenCon?) (more thoughts but damn the blog I linked to here is monetized - holy shit - and here I dropped adsense because I thought it was tacky...)
Free rooms! (if you are lucky, you only share it with one sweaty gamer, but it may be two. Don't worry if you want to bring your wife, they'll find a different sweaty gamer for her to bunk with)
Free Badges! - We don't need no steenkin' badges! 'Cause we ain't going to GenCon.
Free Swag! - Unless that includes free airline tickets - it ain't happening.
4 weeks before GenCon opens and NOW they realize they're short? Makes me wonder about the behind the scenes activity with D&D Next.
It's a shame I can't be more positive about D&D Next, but what I've seen makes it feel like the Mongrelmen of AD&D have taken over the latest version's development, as there are what appears to be bits of different (A)D&D versions but lack of a coherent whole.
Now, if they were bribing folks to run DCC or S&W I'd put in for the emergency vacation days tomorrow. Alas, it doesn't appear to be the case...
Picturing Solo History
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There are many gamers who will tell you that it was *Vampire the Masquerade*
that got them into roleplaying. That was in the 1990s. There are many
gamers ...
1 minute ago
Funny, I don't see the AD&D bits in there. I see 3e in just about every rule though.
ReplyDeleteHey, don't besmirch Mongrelmen. They were a huge part of Purple Mountain III: The Feasting!
ReplyDeleteI'll stick to Garycon.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly they are supporting AD&D on the site as well, with a new downloadable module.
ReplyDeleteFrom the Table of Content of Dungeon Magazine 215
The Last Slave Lord
By Robert J. Schwalb
The Slave Lords are dead, yet one survives! Journey to a remote monastery to end the vile threat once and for all. This 1st Edition AD&D adventure for characters of levels 6–9 can be run as a stand-alone scenario or as a sequel to the classic “A” series adventures. It also includes 4th Edition conversion notes.
Given what Ihave seen from GMs and schedule at other conventions, a month out is a huge headway to making a few changes.
ReplyDeleteLots of GM cancel without even a notice at every convention I have ever been too, and that is lots.
What's wrong with WotC adding a few more DMs for Next? Nothing. The obvious reason as to why they need more, and are willing to pay for rooms and badges, is that they got more player interest than they initially anticipated. That means that even more people than originally planned actually are keen to play Next.
I doubt it has anything to do with poor planning and more to do with player demand.
This isn't new for them...sadly.
ReplyDeleteAt GenCon SoCal 2003, we had to wait close to an hour just to get a DM - and the entire experience sucked so badly we swore off D&D at conventions afterward. Apparently they were so short on DMs that they grabbed passerby, asked if they liked D&D, slapped an adventure in their hand and directed them to a table to run.