The Roleplay of Dylan

My thoughts about the D&D Experience announcements

So, I live just outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana and some of the biggest news from Wizard of the Coast happened today some 25 miles from me at the D&D Experience

I just wanted to post some thoughts on some of the major bullet points (Stealing the major bullet points from Chris at Icosahedrophilia. )

• D&D Miniatures line continues in a different packaging format. Visible minis are gone. Six miniatures per blind package, sixty miniatures per set. August 2010 set “Lords of Madness” includes huge miniatures and introduces a new “very rare” frequency category. 2010 releases: Orcus, Lords of Madness, and a surprise.
  • Not happy with the current path of minis. I don’t have the tons of  money need to chase down rares and Wotc following this path means I’m using paper figures or tokens to represent the hard to find figures. I’d like to see a packaging for the broke – a package of 30-40 figures for $14.99. Some of the larger dragons and rare monsters could be sold separately for a fixed price. However, this collectors game was one of the main reasons that I quit playing Magic the Gathering. I couldn’t continue to keep buying the ultra rare cards to have the best unbeatable deck.
• New “master sets” for Dungeon Tiles (The Dungeon in July, The City in October) will be kept in print to provide consistent access to a core set of tiles for new purchasers/players. Look for The Wilderness in December 2010. Expansions like March 2010’s Harrowing Halls will provide more variety but will still come one printing at a time, as currently.
  • Since I haven’t really played 4e yet, I’ve not got into buying tiles although I like having a selection of them and they aren’t really too pricey.
• Monster Manual 3 (June) will contain more story elements (fluff).
  • Nice! I like fluff, but I need enough stats to keep my “needing to buy DDI subscription to play” out of the equation.
• New line of “essentials” products such as the starter kit (September 2010) and Dungeon Master’s Kit (October 2010) are like “quick start” products for new players and DMs.
  • I am looking forward to these. I don’t have alot of the books yet and look forward to these to help me get up to speed as a wanna-be DM and get some friends into playing (including my wife.)
• Gamma World will also have a collectible card component.
  • I’m looking forward to Gamma World, but not another collectible card component – this leads back to hunting of rare items and paying outrageous amounts.
• A second D&D board game ships in November, Dungeons of Dragonfire Mountain, with mechanics similar to the Ravenloft board game.
  • Yawn. Not my cup of tea.

Some other things that were announced today:

• D&D Encounters: an in-store weekly adventure series coming soon to Wizards Play Network retail locations worldwide.
  • Sounds fun – a great introduction for a few week span of 1-2 hours play sessions. I wonder if any flgs within 15 miles of me will be hosting it. I might have to stop by and play some.
• The announcement that Wotc was not renewing the Star Wars licence with Lucasfilm.
  • To me, this was the biggest announcement of the day, even if it came out of the West Coast and not the D&D experience. I got into playing RPGs recently because of Star Wars Saga. I found a great group of guys that I play with and I’ve learned more than just Star Wars Saga. But I’ve just started scratching the surface of SWSE and I can’t wait to dig deeper. I’m saddened that the end of the line has come for Saga and I look forward to trying to complete my collection prior to everything disappearing off the shelves. Thanks Wotc for the great books and I look forward to being able to use them for many years to come!

I do look forward to reading more about the upcoming products, but I need to see what would be the right purchases for me.

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