How Story Influences Design and How Design Influences Story

A case study set in the launch of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons

By Peter D Adkison April, 2004

Introduction
l l l l l l

My name is Peter Adkison A gamer since birth A gaming professional since 1990 when I created Wizards of the Coast (WotC), a games publisher CEO of WotC until 2001 Published Magic: The gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, and Pokmon Currently own and manage Gen Con, the largest hobby games convention in the Americas

Thank Yous
l l l l

Thanks to you for attending! Thanks to the design & literature departments for sponsoring this lecture Thanks to Carlos for the invitation Apologies to all of you for having to endure a lecture in English

Lecture Summary
l

l l l

Explore the topic of how literary elements and design elements influence each other by examining a case study from when I was CEO at Wizards of the Coast. The case study: The launch of 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons in 1999. Conclusions Q&A

Background
l l

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) was the first roleplaying game and was launched in 1973. The company that created it, TSR, was nearly bankrupt in 1997 due to sagging sales and poor management. WotC acquired TSR in 1997 based on my belief that a dramatic revision of the games design would revive sales to profitable levels.

Design Elements in D&D

l l l

Game Rules Artistic look and feel Character design

Male & Female Seven player character races (human, elf, dwarf, etc) Character classes (fighter, wizard, barbarian, etc) Monster races Geography History Sociology Etc.

World design

The Role of Story in D&D

l l l l l

In D&D players create fictional characters and play them through adventures. Adventures are linked together to form stories. Stories are set in a world (fictional or real). Characters develop personality and evolve over time. Similar to some computer games, but face-to-face roleplaying dramatically increases the opportunities for story development.

We Will Look At Four Instances

Story Story Story

Character Design Artistic Design World Design

Game Design

Story

Instance #1 Story Influences Character Design

l

Previous editions: There were different game rules for player races and monster races.

A member of a monster race could not be a protagonist.

Instance #1 Story Influences Character Design

l

Problem: Modern D&D players require more options for story development.

As our real-world society struggles to escape from racial stereotyping, there is a requirement among gamers to explore these same issues in gaming.

Example: a player may want to have as a central character an orc who was an orphan, raised by nuns.

Instance #1 Story Influences Character Design

l

3rd Edition D&D: Monster races can now be characters.

The game still recommends that protagonists are from the original group of seven races, because the rules are optimized around this configuration. But the rules now support deviation from this recommendation for experienced players.

Instance #2 Story Influences Artistic Design

l

Previous Editions: 20th century art for Dungeons & Dragons had a clean, idealistic, traditional fantasy look & feel.

Instance #2 Story Influences Artistic Design

l

Problems: The art did not very realistically depict what D&D characters would look like.

D&D characters tend to be very well armed, with lots of weapons and magical equipment, similar to in a video game. The chainmail bikini syndrome.

Instance #2 Story Influences Artistic Design

l

3rd Edition D&D: A new artistic direction was established around a more realistic, gritty appearance.

A more realistic depiction of characters and monsters helps support story development.

Instance #3 Story Influences World Design

l

Previous Editions: Humans in D&D were nearly always depicted as white Northern European stock.

Instance #3 Story Influences World Design

l

Problem: The D&D worlds were not very accessible to minorities or international markets.

Instance #3 Story Influences World Design

l

3rd Edition D&D: We decided that the race of humans in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons was officially a mixed race.

Under WotCs ownership there has been a deliberate attemptnot always successfullyto populate D&D worlds with a more racially mixed assortment of human characters.

Instance #4 Game Design Influences Story

l

Previous Editions: Not all races (dwarves, elves, humans, etc) and classes (wizards, fighters, rogues, etc) were balanced in terms of game mechanics. Some races and classes were clearly inferior to others.

Instance #4 Game Design Influences Story

l

Problem: Imbalance can make for great stories, but not great game play.

We didnt want players to feel frustrated because they realize they made a bad decision in picking a race or class with fewer abilities that would be important in game play.

Instance #4 Game Design Influences Story

l

3rd Edition D&D: We made a design decision that all player races and classes should be balanced (relative to each other) at all levels of play.

These game design decisions determined what racial and class abilities characters could have, thus establishing parameters around how stories could be developed.

Commercial Results
l

Third Edition D&D was hugely successful in the US market

Critical acclaim Record sales Industry growth

l l

International sales of D&D increased, but only modestly Profitability was achieved (and therefore I wasnt fired!)

Conclusions of interest to an audience of design and literature students?

Q&A