Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne discusses Critical Role's decision to use Dungeons & Dragons 2024 rules over the Daggerheart RPG system in their newest campaign.
For the fourth Critical Role campaign, the group has decided to adopt a West Marches play format with 13 players split into three groups: Soldiers, Seekers and Schemers. The Soldiers will focus on combat, the Seekers will deal with exploration, and the Schemers will concentrate on interactions. What has attracted significantly more attention than just the launch of a new Critical Role campaign would attract is the decision to use the 2024 D&D rules system, rather than Critical Role's recently launched Daggerheart RPG system (see "Daggerheart Revealed").
Many people found this odd as the launch of a new campaign would reasonably give Critical Role a great opportunity to showcase its new RPG system in front of a huge audience. The GM for the campaign is Dimension 20's Brendan Lee Mulligan rather than longtime Critical Role GM Matt Mercer (who will be playing in the campaign). Milligan has said the organization wanted to use the best system for the campaign and, while there are dozens of fine RPGs systems available, they decided D&D 2024 would be best for what the game was trying to accomplish, especially with tables of players switching in and out of the campaign as the West Marches style of play allows.
Although some commentators have opined that Wizards of the Coast may have contributed financially to Critical Role to influence the choice of game systems, there is no indication that is what happened. Despite all the other RPG systems that have launched over the past decade, none have achieved the market penetration and awareness that D&D has. D&D is still the entry point for almost all new RPG players, who look around at all the other RPG systems available after they get familiar with the D&D system. They may move onto something else, but based solely on sales and player interest, D&D still dominates the market.
I recently saw a YouTube commentor proclaiming "Dungeons & Dragons is Officially Dead." Why, you ask? Because Wizards of the Coast has sold a license to publish a D&D crocheting book with 20 patterns (including ones to make a Bag of Holding), a D20 pillow and an Owlbear Cub (which, if anyone feels particularly generous, I would love to have). This affront is enough for said YouTube host to proclaim the death of D&D. I guess the commentator never saw all the other licensed products WotC saw fit to license the D&D name to, some far odder than a book of crochet patterns. At various times in history, one could find D&D pinball machines, beach towels, underwear, needlepoint kits, Lite Brite patterns, stained glass kits and woodburning sets. In fact, prior to Wizards of the Coast, in the TSR days, California TSR offices were set up to seek out licensing deals for the TSR brand. Given that, I think it will take a lot more than one licensed book to kill off D&D.
Comments? Any odd D&D licenses you might remember? Send them to castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
