The DMs Blog

It’s time, I think.

When I started this web site, it was called “Dungeons and Dragons Reviews” and it was designed to be more of a static, article-based site, featuring reviews of D&D products.  I quickly discovered, however, that I enjoyed the interactivity of blogging about Dungeons and Dragons much more than I enjoyed writing articles, and so The DMs Blog was born as a part of DnDReviews.com.

Today, I find myself in a branding crisis.  I have no desire to write reviews all day long, so DnDReviews.com isn’t necessarily appropriate anymore.  I could stick with “The DM’s Blog,” but I don’t think it is nearly original enough to describe what I do here.  On top of that, folks like Yax at Dungeonmastering.com and Phil from ChattyDM.net sort of have the “DM” market cornered. 

So, I’m at a bit of a loss.  I need a new name. 

This is where YOU come in.

Between now at June 3, 2008, I need as many suggestions as I can get for a name for this blog.  Put yours right down below in the “comments” section.  On June 4, I will pick my favorite, and announce the winner on the day 4E is released, June 6, hopefully at the new blog address.  The winner will receive her choice of any one of the 3 core 4E books, or a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate.

You can enter as many times as you’d like.  Be creative.  Be unique.  Be interesting.  Here’s what I know I want:

I want a blog name that has an available “.com” domain.  In other words, if I’m to be The Jolly DM, I want jollyDM.com to be available.  You can find whether a domain is available at http://www.domainsearch.com/.

• I want a blog name that has one of these keywords in it:  dnd, dungeon, dragon, rpg, or roleplaying.  This point isn’t mandatory, but if you can incorporate one of them it’d be swell.
• I want a blog name that is no more than 3 words long (excluding the word “blog”).
• I want a blog name that represents my writing style and my blog’s mission.  For my writing style, you’d have to read some of my posts.  For the mission, well, here is my newly-minted mission statement:

“(Name)’s purpose is to provide interesting and insightful information for Dungeons and Dragons players, DMs and fans, to facilitate discussion of issues in the Dungeons and Dragons community, and to serve the gaming community at large.”

Good luck to everyone.  If you have questions, email me here:  bob at dnd reviews dot com.

To follow the contest and know when I’ve announced the winner, Subscribe to The DM’s Blog via RSS, or via E-mail,  and/or follow me on Twitter.

Before you get all pissed off and start ripping me a new asshole, let me say this:

I’m a Dungeons and Dragons geek, and I’m damned proud of it.  I love my D&D peeps, and wouldn’t trade them for all the gold in World of Warcraft.

Having said that, I’ve noticed some things.  See, I run a mildly popular writing blog, and I’ve had the chance to meet all sorts of folks in the blogosphere by way of that blog.  And do you know what I’ve discovered?  We D&D geeks are way behind on this Internet thing.  The sad facts are:

Dungeons and Dragons is an underrepresented niche in the blogosphere. 

Our Rockstar bloggers like Yax at Dungeonmastering.com boast 1200 or so RSS subscribers.  That’s no small number, to be sure.  But in the freelance writing area?  The big blogs start at around 20,000 subscribers.  Tech knowledge or no tech knowledge, that’s a pretty startling difference.  If Dungeons and Dragons geeks are online, they’re not hanging out at D&D blogs. 

But that’s not the only problem for Dungeons and Dragons Blogs.

Dungeons and Dragons players prefer interactivity to information gathering.

Forums do amazingly well in Dungeons and Dragons world of the Internet.  While forums have, in many cases, become passé’ in other niches, our forums are going gangbusters.  The EnWorld forums and the WotC forums together constitute more readers than any two freelance writing forums that I’m aware of.

Now, blogs are interactive, to be sure.  But Dungeons and Dragons players don’t seem, as of yet, to really have grasped just how much more effective blogs are than forums.  Blogs are intimate communities of, generally, about 30-50 active participants.  Forums, in many cases, have thousands.  Blogs focus on a single topic at a time, and carry that conversation from one blog to the next.  Forums tend to keep everything in one neat little isolated forum thread, so if you skip one thread you miss volumes.

That’s not all of it, though.

Dungeons and Dragons players prefer pen-and-paper to computers.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule.  One of my best friends is a huge Everquest guy, in addition to playing Dungeons and Dragons.  But the nature of the game has been such that you don’t need a lot of technical knowledge to play.

This is, in some ways, why 4E is needed so badly.  Specifically, the digital initiative is needed badly.  If the hobby is going to continue to grow, it has to appeal to a generation of kids that have grown up with computers in the house.  No, Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t have to be WOW-ified,  but it does have to utilize some technology.  This is why I’m so geeked about the DM Tools and the virtual tabletop:  if they work as promised, they’ll bring Dungeons and Dragons into the 21st century.  Truth be told, we should have been here a decade ago.

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So, what do you think?  Are we stuck in a bygone era?  If so, does it mean our game will soon become a thing of the past, replaced en toto by MMORPGs?

Prove me wrong:  Subscribe to The DM’s Blog via RSS and follow me on Twitter.

Photo by Irena Kittenclaw

One of the massive changes taking place in Dungeons and Dragons 4E is the creation of a core world.  Up to this point, D&D has only ever provided players with elements of a core world or core cosmology - such as the old Greyhawk Deities in D&D 3E. 

This change is a long time coming.  Think about it:  you’re a new D&D player.  You pick up the core books at Barnes & Noble, and you want to run D&D for your friends.  As it stands today, you either have to buy a campaign setting or create your own world from scratch.  Do you know how overwhelming it is for a first-time DM to do either one of those?  With the number of campaign settings, the neophyte won’t even know where to begin.  Even if he does, what if he picks a crappy setting?  He and his cohorts will write D&D off altogether.  And don’t get me started on how lost the new DM feels trying to create a world.  I’ve been DMing for almost three decades, so I enjoy campaign creation;  and that new DM will too, in a couple of years.

Including a core setting and cosmology doesn’t forbid anyone from creating their own.  In fact, WotC is now making the various campaign settings part of core.  This means you can have a near-infinite number of settings and cosmologies without breaking the game.  That’s a sweet deal, and it’s overdue.

For some other thoughts about these changes, check out this article at Critical Hits: D&D 4e: A Whole New World.

So, what do you all think?  Is this a good move, or not?

have been greatly exaggerated.

Same goes for another rumor, I think.

Apis mentioned in the comments of Friday’s post a little rumor going around the Internets about how Wizards of the Coast won’t be at Gen Con this year.

I’ve listened to the reasons people are bantering about.  Really, I have.  Most of them are pure crap.  My favorite is the one that says George Lucas is insanely mad at Peter Atkinson over Star Wars Celebration and the lawsuit.  C’mon, boys.  Do you really buy into the conspiracy theory that George Lucas is sitting in his throne passing out dictates to HASBRO?!?  About something that is, in Lucas terms, a pittance?

photo by Official Star Wars Blog

Now, there is a slight possibility that Hasbro won’t allow WotC to go to Gen Con because of its policy about doing business with companies in bankruptcy, but I seriously doubt that’s going to be the case.  There were still Hasbro products on the shelves at K-mart while they were restructuring.

So, why am I so confident that WotC will be at Gen Con?  One reason:

Dungeons and Dragons 4E will be less than a quarter old.

It’s possible that Gen Con needs WotC more than WotC needs Gen Con most years.  2008 will be different, though: WotC won’t have sales figures available on 4E by the time they’d need to put events in motion for Gen Con.  WotC can’t take the risk that they will alienate a large portion of their fanbase and sacrifice the largest single event-based marketing campaign of the year by sitting it out.  WotC needs Gen Con this year to solidify the market position of Dungeons and Dragons 4E.

WotC can’t afford to skip Gen Con, at least not in 2008.  DDXP, however successful it’s becoming for them, still isn’t Gen Con.

Am I wrong?  What do you all think?  Will WotC show in August?

Oh, and 5 Internet points to whomever can tell me where the title quote comes from.