Dungeons and Developments

 A summation.

We've touched quite a bit on the ongoing drama surrounding the world of Dungeons and Dragons as it battles with it's parent company around mildly confusing contract terms that no seems able to clearly define beyond actual lawyers themselves. And even the lawyers seem to politely disagree with one another. I hear one lawyer tell me of the seriousness of the unspoken language of their OGL licence change, and another lawyer talk about how the OGL is an entirely toothless document that has no power beyond the actual written language of the rules manual anyway. It's all very confusing and makes following the storyline of how this is progressing very difficult indeed. All I know for certain is that Wizards of the Coast were told their brand is undermonetised and is sizing up an excuse to make DnD, or certain parts of it, subscription based- which is an idea so insidious I'm almost fascinated just to see how they plan to go about it.

But there's certainly some aspects about the Dungeons and Dragons world to be celebrating at the same time, proving that everything is not as 'Doom and Gloom' as it might seem from the surface. For one, Dungeons and Dragons through the lens of Critical Role has released the second season in the 'Legends of Vox Machina', a very expedient and lovingly animated rendition of the first campaign by the legendary DnD and voice acting troupe led by Matthew Mercer. The entire series is wreathed in high-quality animation, somewhat reminiscent of a more contemporary faux-anime 'Avatar: The Last Airbender' style and voiced by the cast themselves, as is fitting given their day job is literally performing voice acting roles. Not only is the exsistence of this show a boon for the visibility of Dungeons and Dragons, but it's also technically another example of a successful game-to-screen adaptation before the Last of Us came around. Just putting it out there: that show was not the first such adaptation to be decent.

There's also the movie on the horizon which, whilst it doesn't look like the most amazing thing to ever grace the world it at least seems fun. The last Dungeons and Dragon's movies that spawned around about the early 2000's and suffered quite a bit from an identity crisis of wanting to both take the source material seriously and acknowledge the silliness of what they were actually making. Also, it was a fantasy movie from the 2000's. Everybody suffers whenever that happens. But this new movie at least seems to know it wants to be a silly adventure movie above all else- even if that does sort of put in the same realm as most of the recent Marvel movies who's unending quippiness has begun to grate even the most ardent super hero movie supporters like myself. I do wonder if that's going to have an unintended knockback on the perception of this movie when it launches.

And in general the visibility of the DnD brand is more out in the public eye then ever. Just scanning Youtube there seems to be dozens upon dozens of individual groups of DnD players who livestream their own personal, usually homebrew, campaigns out to the world, most with their own unique style of storytelling and adventure weaving which make them distinct and creatively interesting viewing experiences. Personally I'm a fan of the British Youtube Dnd Group, The Oxventures, purely for their utterly irreverently built world and lore, the odd excessively British pun or reference and the almost farcical way the team manages to slip out of any and all danger by pure accident or luck. Sometimes it's nice not to fear for the lives of your favourite characters every other week.

I think that part of the appeal of Dungeons and Dragons is it's endless appeal for being accessible to practically everyone who gives it a shot, because these are stories largely told within the mind's eye; from the words of the dungeon master to the hands of the players and the ears of the audience, in the instance of broadcast sessions. Rather than a book, which paints out a story through clever language and written presentation, I find a lot of DnD vernacular leans into a singularly verbal form of storytelling that stokes upon the expectations of a visual medium as much as the creativity of the receptive mind. And as with any good spoken tale, this allows for every adventure to come together in the mind of each listener in the audience with an entirely distinct configuration depending on the mind in quesition. DnD feeds off some of the core basic tenements of storytelling to form these endlessly accessible worlds with endless potential.

And the potential of these vast worlds is what has been most largely at threat in the eyes of the public given recent developments. Games Workshop, to contrast, famously throw out their license to anyone with a pulse which results in roughly 5-10 externally made products each and every year. The hit rate for those may be spotty, but the upside is that literally anyone can turn their considerable talents to the property and boost it. Owlcat Games making their 'Rogue Trader' game is quite literally the only way I'd ever find myself being interested in the Warhammer Universe, but now I voraciously consume pages of lore for on everything I can get my grubby mitts to, eager to catch up with the decades of work that universe has had already. And DnD has it's Baldur's Gate franchise which is a giant pull for gamers simply for the prestige of the title involved.

Wizards can't just try and put an end to all that by tightening it's reigns and shaking the audience for money, no matter how hard that it tries. So much of what makes Table Top gaming so very prolific is it's ability to worm into the crooks and crannies of every vector and just slide right the way into popular culture in ways you don't even expect or notice. Whether you're looking to kill some time with party games, lose yourself in a fresh world with singular games, enjoy passive entertainment with TV shows, go out for an event at the movies or just power-grind in a computer game; you can find something with the DnD stamped on it, advertising the Dnd name in a grass routes manner. Pathfinder's Paizo seems to have been formed by former Wizard's folk who understood the importance of that heart of the community, and even to this day they've been proving that understanding with how they've handled the very specific presentation of their own updated licence.

There's no real conclusion here, which works will in how I wish to reflect that there is no conclusion in the Dungeons and Dragons story either. The drama has begun to die down and Wizards have managed to put out a statement that wasn't too smothered with the overwhelming scent of mouth-shoe, but they've already exposed everything that they are and what they stand for when it comes to Dungeons and Dragons. They stand for chopping up and disseminating the freedom of this franchise so they can wring it out to dry and move onto the next thing. The same way that Magic The Gathering has long lost it's way from the heights of it's golden age, Wizard's want to bring that overly greedy perspective to a franchise they think is too big to fail, and if there's anything the past year in particular has taught us all, it's that nothing and no-one is too big to fail.