The Dragon Age PnP RPG and Nick’s thinking
As Sophie’s posted, Green Ronin have announced that they’re producing a pen-and-paper version of Bioware’s upcoming CRPG Dragon Age. This was hyped by a series of clues on the GR twitter feed and now Chris Pramas has updated the thinking behind these clues on his blog.
GR have done a bit of a closet Mongoose thing of late, publishing increasing numbers of licensed properties alongside their original settings: A Song of Ice and Fire, Wild Cards (George R. R. Martin’s shared world superheros setting), Thieve’s World and the Black Company. More than anyone, they must know how to make this work for them financially. And Dragon Age will expose them to a great new mass of potential customers – there’s already a page up on the official Dragon Age site and presumably there will be mentions in the manual and possible even load screens and the like. Pramas specifically says that:
As for “something needed,” I was talking about a really good intro game for new roleplayers. I don’t think D&D has had that since the early 80s (hence “something overdue”) and the tabletop roleplaying hobby needs new blood. It is not a coincidence that the first release is a boxed set.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think that this is going to bring in these new gamers in large numbers, box set or not. The vast majority of video gamers don’t care about tabletop games – if you look at the offical forums, you’ll see that near everyone commenting on this is an old tabletop RPGer. No one has popped in to say “I’ve always wanted to play a table top RPG and now here’s my chance!”
One other concern I have is that Bioware’s best work has been with other people’s settings. Star Wars and the Forgotten Realms in particular. Mass Effect is the only game of theirs I know with a totally original setting (Jade Empire is pseudo-historical) and I was fairly under whelmed.
I have every faith that GR will do this well and that it will be an interesting game , and I’ll probably pick it up if I like the setting from the game, but I hope no one thinks this is going to make RPGs mainstream again.
4 Comments to The Dragon Age PnP RPG and Nick’s thinking
I’ve always said that rpgs are and will remain having an apprenticeship system. Few people learn about them by picking up a book in a store, going home and reading it. Instead, someone just invites them to a game session, and if they have fun they do it again.
Unless it’s as simple as draughts, then everyone’s first game experience will be of not really understanding the rules, so whether they have fun is all about the other people at the game table.
How do we get newbies into gaming? is often asked online. Well, it’s the same as how do we get more women or Jews or accountants or whatever into gaming: just invite them to a game session, and do your best to make it fun for them.
Rules can’t hurt, I suppose. But in the end it comes down to the people there, and inviting them. Many game groups are quite insular, it’s all “stranger! danger!”
That’s very true. People will get into games because they are invited into one. But if a group of friends all like the Dragon Age CRPG and one of them picks up the book and then runs a game for her friends then that’s another good intro to the hobby.
Also Nick’s point of the only people on the forums who are into the idea are lapsed PnP gamers is worth looking at. If those people leave their PCs or consoles for a bit to site around a table with some friends again that’s still a good thing for the hobby.
Where would they see the books to pick them up, though? Only specialty game stores carry rpgs except for a few D&D or WW books – here in Australia, at least, and it was the same in NZ when I was last there.
Back in the 80s when game books were in heaps of stores – like the kids’ book store next door to my house which had D&D books – complete newbies could stumble into rpg books, but today? Where?
I don’t know that forums are that representative. Most gamers aren’t members of rpg forums, and most members of them never post. Those who do post, well…
It seems like the two basic types of regular rpg discussion forum posters are the complete rpg fanatics who want to talk about it and play, and some old gamers without a group, who are talking instead of playing.
Fanatics and people not playing are not very representative of the hobby in general, I think.
Yes i like the game but i think the best game are for pc. like call of duty 4, battlefield 2 that is an old game but is a nice nice game.
May 7, 2009