Re: Dungeons of Dread – a rant about a game that doesn’t exist (yet)

Posted by MortiS-the-Lost on Oct 10, 2011; 12:24pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Dungeons-of-Dread-a-rant-about-a-game-that-doesn-t-exist-yet-tp6875207p6876677.html

Billiam Babble wrote

*Grin* I kind of want the game you're talking about -we all do. ;)  And we'd pay double!

I'd consider £80 near enough to paying double the actual value to start with – no game is worth £80 no matter how good it is

Billiam Babble wrote

even when WHQ came out, it was just after they had thrown all of the RPGs out of the stores, including Warhammer FRPG.  Even as a D&D/HQ-type game there was a message in that game to role-playing dungeon-delvers that plots could be randomised and that the traditional dungeon games were no longer needed, even the GM could be dropped.

As I said in the initial rant 'Dungeons of Dread' would most likely be a 2 player game – Heroes Vs Monsters (like Space Hulk). There would be no real GM and all the quests would be fixed battle scenarios -   randomisation would be left out because it allows for extra play and thus a need for expansions (a limited release is 'self contained' meaning GW will not bother to support it after it's sold out )  

Billiam Babble wrote

In 25mm game the settings/scenarios and characters are fixed, no creativity allowed (not like MERP et al), apart from in the painting of the figures perhaps (that's my interpretation, mind).  I'm actually surprised they've kept the LotR games going, the rules are different from the standard WH/GW fare and the figures are less caricatured - it's all very un-GW - not to mention strangely serious, the Waah! GW orcs have no place in Saruman's White Hands (or whatever they're called), my glorious Uruk-Hai.  I strikes me (from the magazine rules I have) that the LotR games are a perfect gateway game for new players, that as well as the movie franchise is still ongoing.  Otherwise I think it would have been dropped much faster than Gothic or Epic were.

Concerning GW's LotR games – well it's possible they will be dropped soon, since interest in the movies has disappeared among the easily lead masses, LotR minis sales have dropped and GW making fewer and fewer LotR products – soon it will be lost to GW's past.

The reason LotR is so un-Warhammery is that it was part of the design brief to be so. Part of Newline's licence agreement with GW was that the game rules and figures should not be compatible with any existing GW game and of course GW agreed – being able to use Gandalf or a Balrog in a game of Warhammer would be an IP nightmare which might result in GW being sued (something GW fears above all else) and thus a Non-Warhammer rule system was devised and the miniatures were sculpted in 25mm scale with 'realistic' proportions

There is no talk of GW getting a licence to produce miniatures for The Hobbit movie(s!) and hardly anyone plays LotR anymore (GW's last LotR game/attempt to boost sales - War of The Ring was a complete flop) – so it looks like LotR will be dropped as soon as the licence expires and never talked of again by GW

Billiam Babble wrote

I think that WHQ steered too close to D&D and there used to be a real snobbery amongst the GW wargamers that RPG games were too intricate and "beardy" to quote a WH40K and Skaven collecting friend (I say "used to be" - this feels like a generation ago).  Naturally if you play both you'll know that actually old-school role-players can be very relaxed about how rules are used, and that rules-lawyering is common in all gaming, but I digress ...  

Most table top gamers these days (by which I mean ignorant GW gamers) have lost sight of Warhammer and 40k's roots in RPGs – many can't fathom the concept of playing as an individual Hero against a hoard of monsters. Attempts to explain dungeon crawlers and RPGs to some players I've met at THW have been met with reposes like “that's really un-balanced! Don't the Heroes get to lead a unit?”, “Is it a Skirmish game like Necromunda?”, “I didn't know there were Orks in Space Hulk” and (my favourite – said by a passer-by looking at a game we we're playing at THW once) “Wow – you've beaten all their gangs down to just 4 guys!”
Other's have shown interested but become really stumped when they started playing – I remember 2 very distinct instances with players who didn't get the concept that the dungeon was laid out as the Heroes explored – one after we'd just put down the starting tile for CaStLe RaVenLofT and put the Heroes on the stairs exclaimed “1 room? That's an easy dungeon!” and another after we'd taken apart a dungeon from a previous game to start the new one he was joining started randomly putting together rooms and corridors and said “Isn't it nice to have some else set up the terrain? - saves you the work”
of course you always get the “Why do we all have 1 guy each and you get all those Orcs and Goblins and the Dragon?”, it's close relatives “Can I be the Orcs?” and “Why can't I be a Dragon?”
other common catch phrases for those unfamiliar with RPGs and Dungeon Crawlers include “How do you win?” and “Can I shoot the Dwarf?”

wow I've really strayed off topic now ….

Billiam Babble wrote

Commission driven staff have short memories.  Space Hulk came back.  Even Blood Bowl!  But like I said, it's about squads and teams.  I'm guessing Blood Bowl fitted in with the idea of regular store based tournaments.(?)

Space Hulk never really came back – they'd don't support it, it was just a limited release only cash in (as would Dungeons of Dread be).
Blood Bowl is what they term a 'Specialist Game' which means they pretend to support it, but don't really – the miniatures are considered 'Specialist' which means they cost even more than the normal GW prices again and when you enquire about the game in a GW store the staff will tell you not to bother because “no one plays it” and tells you 40k is much better because it has Spaze Marinez.

Billiam Babble wrote

I've never played the Descent game either - and there's lots of expansion packs for that.  I mention it because it seemed to be really popular a few years back.  I'm getting more and more curious about Castle Ravenloft and the other D&D "board" games (in the hope that they are more "pick-up and play" than the RPG rules).  Surely GW is aware of the successes of those games?

GW are most likely aware of such games, but would prefer if their customers weren’t – GW consider themselves to have no competition and think they can sell and charge whatever they see fit, because people have nowhere else to go.
If they attract too many broader minded gamers like me and you, they risk us talking to the devout fans and telling them about cheaper, better and more interesting games. However it's interesting to note that a lot GW fans won't listen anyway and will dismiss anything non-GW out of hand as being crap and/or take any criticism of a GW product as a personal attack. (I was once told D&D was "just a poor copy of Warhammer" by one such person)

Billiam Babble wrote

Somehow GW seems to veer away from complete games in a box - apart from the absolute basics (beginner sets), because it's about the metal, and the fine-cast and the double priced acrylics.  But we know all this.  However, Space Hulk was a complete game - but note that it was "limited edition" - and I don't think that's just because it's a gamble to invest in a new game so you have a limited print run - they knew it would be a success, it's because for over 20 years at the heart of every GW manager is the pressure to pile on the extras, to encourage the buyer to diversify, new troops, new codex.  Space Hulk was a bone thrown to the nostalgia heads, and a perhaps a marketing promo to perpetuate the bizarre concept of sword wielding spacemen (okay, I'm getting cynical here).

Like wise Dungeons of Dread would of course be a limited release and 'self-contained' game that GW would put on the shelves, hype to buggery, sell out and then never talk of again. Another bone thrown to the older games to try and fool us into thinking they do listen and care – and as something the younger games can say “yea but they did this” when we are trying to explain how thing used to be a lot better.

Billiam Babble wrote

What a strange discussion we're having with ourselves.  It's not quite enough to criticise GW for their hideous monopoly in the UK and nakedly exploitative concepts, that we have to invent and torture ourselves with hypothetical possibilities.  

 Thanks for prodding the grey matter, Mortis.

I felt a  hypothetical game might be a better way to point how GW works and what they are doing to the hobby as people wouldn't just see it as me trying to give 'bad press' to DreadFleet or SpaceHulk 3rd (2 games with which they've already done exactly what I'm describing with – think of this as a kind of satire)

anyway it – this is great, we havn't had a good long rant like this together for a while